These gingerbread muffins are the perfect way to enjoy a spicy gingerbread for breakfast! As an added bonus, everything is mixed in one bowl so there are fewer dishes to clean!
Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating the holiday today! I hope that Santa was good to you all and that you are able to spend the day with your loved ones.
When I was growing up, we never baked anything holiday-themed so I was always jealous of the kids that got to bake cookies or decorate gingerbread houses. Now I want to do all the holiday baking so I am definitely making up for lost time.
A few weekends ago, my family and I decorated our very first gingerbread house. The house was already pre-made (with glue, nonetheless) so the structure was all ready to go for us. They gave us a bunch of holiday candy, frosting, and allowed us to go to down. We went with our neighbor, who gave us the fantastic tip about leaving at least one wall of the gingerbread house lightly decorated. That way, the gingerbread aroma could permeate throughout our house and make it smell like the holidays.
We took their advice and man has our house smelled like a million bucks. Rather than try to sneak a bite of the gingerbread house and risk eating glue, I decided to bake gingerbread muffins instead. That way I had an excuse to eat gingerbread for breakfast and all the other meals and snacks throughout the day.
I loved that these muffins were made in one bowl so there wasn’t as much to clean up. These muffins bake up super dense, so if you want them a bit fluffier, I’d recommend upping the applesauce to 3/4 cup or even adding about 1/4 cup of water. My husband and I loved these since they weren’t too sweet and had a wonderful gingerbread flavor. Addie wasn’t as big of a fan, but only because I didn’t add chocolate chips to them. You can certainly throw some in if you like, but we preferred keeping the gingerbread flavor as the hero in these muffins.
One bowl gingerbread muffins
Ingredients
- 1 small/medium sized banana about 1/2 cup, mashed
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/3 cup dark molasses
- 1/3 cup milk of choice
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 and 1/4 cups white whole wheat flour can substitute with all-purpose
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Generously grease or line a standard muffin pan and set aside.
- In a large bowl, mix the banana, egg and vanilla extract until well blended. Add in the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and salt until well incorporated. Mix in the applesauce, molasses and milk. Then add in the sugars, baking powder and baking soda and mix until well blended. Gently fold in the flour until everything just comes together - do not over mix.
- Evenly distribute the batter into the baking wells, filling each about 3/4 full.
- Bake in your preheated oven for 10 minutes. Then turn the heat down to 375 degrees F, rotate the pan, and bake for another 7-10 minutes more or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow muffins to cool before serving.