Happy December 1st everyone! I am so excited to share this recipe for vegan chunky monkey muffins with you. I will provide options for alternatives or how to make a few different kinds of muffins based off of this one recipe.
My fiance has never been a breakfast person, but lately, he has been all over having one or two of these muffins on his way out the door in the mornings.
As soon as he saw and smelled the muffins I had made on the weekend he grabbed one and nearly burnt his hand because he was so excited to have a taste of my creation.
When 5 minutes passed and I told him it was cool enough to eat, he paused his game immediately and ran over, grabbing the muffin in both hands. He looked deeply hungrily at it and took a big bite out of the side of the muffin.
His eyes got big and then softened with pure happiness coming from the muffin melting in his mouth and bursting with flavours of chocolate, banana, and peanut butter.
He didn’t have to say anything, I already knew that this recipe was the winner!
These muffins look, smell, and taste like dessert, but offer so much more in the way of nutrients than any breakfast cereal or pancake could imagine.
With real ingredients like; cocoa powder, coconut sugar, bananas, peanut butter, whole wheat flour, chia seeds, walnuts, and almond milk.
Muffins are a really great breakfast for people who are up early and just want to get going because they require no prep, not even a knife. Just grab and go!
I like to have one in the afternoon before I start working away at dinner, it gives me a little energy boost and I don’t snack on the dinner ingredients while I cook.
I used to use brown sugar, white unbleached flour, and eggs. Since I now know these ingredients are not even close to healthy, I have switched to less processed 100% vegan ingredients.
If you aren’t caring for your health then no one is. So take it seriously and into your own hands.
An ingredient that is highly processed has lost a large portion of any nutrients that the origin had to offer. For example sugar; white sugar has been bleached, cooked, and chemicalized to produce a fine white sweetener that offers no nutrients.
Coconut sugar is unbleached, has not been crystalized in a machine through cooking and candying, and no unnecessary chemicals have been added to make it more appealing. It is one of the purest forms of natural sweeteners that exist, besides dates, maple syrup, and agave.
When I say peanut butter, I am talking about the natural stuff that separates when left for a couple days, no sugar added. If you use processed peanut butter you will be over sweetening the muffins and your blood.
I prefer other nut butters to peanut butter such as almond or cashew butters, but since peanut butter is the man's favourite I buy that and use that. Bonus, it is easy to sub in any nut butter you prefer if the recipe calls for natural peanut butter.
Natural peanut butter has 1 ingredient; peanuts. If your natural peanut butter has any additions, it is not the one you want!
You may think that there is very little sugar in this recipe, but when you consider that there are 3 mashed bananas, as well as the natural sweetness of healthy ingredients, you won’t want to add any extra sugar than what is suggested.
I originally came across a similar recipe in my Thug Kitchen cookbook, which has been so cool in expanding my dinner menus, and I altered it to fit my preferences and make my own.
If you wish to make peanut butter banana muffins without the cocoa powder just add 2 cups of flour rather than 1 ½ cups and omit the cocoa powder.
If you don’t want the peanut butter, you may be able to try adding olive oil or avocado oil instead. Of course replacing it in equal ratio. Though this is not guaranteed to produce the same muffins, as I have not tried that.
If you are fresh out of chia seeds, you can replace it with a flax egg, substituting it equally.
I hope you find these muffins to be as heavenly as my fiancé and I have, and enjoy them anytime of day!
Recipe
Ingredients;
1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup cocoa or cacao powder
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt (himalayn salt add 1 tsp)
½ cup natural peanut butter (creamy works best)
½ cup coconut sugar
¼ cup almond or non-dairy milk (unsweetened)
1 ½ cups mashed ripe bananas (3 medium)
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 chia egg
Optional;
Handful of walnuts to top
½ cup chopped walnuts mixed in
½ chocolate chips mixed in
Directions;
Grease a muffin tin thoroughly, or place paper muffin cups in each cup, and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Make the chia egg by stirring in 1 tbsp chia seeds to 2.5 tbsp water. Put this aside.
Combine; flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt in a large bowl and set aside.
Mash bananas in a medium bowl, add maple syrup, sugar, peanut butter, almond milk.
Add banana mixture to the dry large bowl, add chia egg, and mix thoroughly, but do not over mix! Otherwise your muffins will be stiff and won’t rise.
Add any additions that you would like folded in now.
Scoop each muffin cup full, and place any additions on top
Place in the middle rack of the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean (if chocolate chips were added, don’t mistake for batter and over bake them).
Allow muffins to cool in the tin for 5 minutes, before removing onto a rack or cooling area. Allow to cool completely (half an hour) before storing.
*You can store these muffins for up to 2 weeks in the fridge, or 4 or 5 days at room temperature. They also freeze well for about 2 months, though mine were eaten before I was able to give an accurate freezer life expectancy.
Final remarks
Thank you for checking out my muffin recipe, I hope that you try it out and see for yourself how perfect these muffins are!
Have fun with the recipe and try new add-ins each time. These muffins are really an open canvas for you to make with what you would like. Whether it be chocolate banana peanut butter or as I call them chunky monkey muffins, or just peanut butter banana muffins which references, of course, Elvis’s choice.
Don’t forget to like, subscribe, or comment if you made these, and let me know how it went. I am so grateful for all the support everyone has given me for this blog, thank you!