These muffis are my favorite fuel and take-along hiking staple and overall just a delicious, healthy snack with no added gluten, sugar, processed fats or guilt to be had!  Feel free to swap out the eggs for Bob’s Red Mill Egg Substitute to make this recipe vegan too!  These are also great for road trips but don’t just take it from me, check out this screenshot of a text from my niece…

My delicious and HEALTHY go-to Banana Berry Muffin recipe:

• 4 bananas – I prefer extra ripe bananas because they are sweeter but any bananas will do. You can also use previously frozen bananas – just make sure to thaw them first.
• 2 eggs slightly beaten or a vegan egg substitute like Bob’s Red Mill Egg Substitute
• 1 cup oat flour* (I grind oats into a flour-like texture in my Vitamix).
• 3/4 cup almond flour* (or other – see my next note on flour options).  My preference is a combo of oat and almond flour.  *Flour Options:  Depending on your preference, you can use any combo of flour that you desire actually… Just make sure the total adds up to 1 3/4 cups).  You can use white or wheat flour (this will not be gluten-free) or any combo of oat, almond, white or wheat as long as it all adds up to 1 3/4 cups of flour total.  I prefer these muffins unprocessed, naturally gluten-free and full of protein so I use this oat and almond flour combination.  If you are gluten sensitive you may want to use gluten-free oats or even all almond flour.
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup applesauce
• Sliced strawberries and/or blueberries to stick in muffin tin cups before baking.  Frozen or fresh blueberries are fine for this recipe! Raspberries work too.

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix and mash bananas and eggs in a mixer. I throw the 4 whole bananas in my mixer and add the 2 eggs and just let the mixer work its magic for a couple minutes.  Remove from mixer – no need to clean mixer bowl before next step!  Easy peasy!
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in mixer for a few seconds to combine.
4. Add apple sauce to mixer and mix briefly until stirred and crumb like.
5. Add banana/egg combo back into mixer with the above flour and applesauce ingredients. Mix to combine.
6. Spray muffin pan tin, silicone or paper cups with oil spray if you don’t mind using oil.
   Regular or mini-sized tin cups work for this recipe – whatever size you and your crew prefer to eat! I do a combination of the two sizes.
7. Pour banana muffin mixture into muffin pan tin cups (regular or mini-sized).
8. Add fresh sliced strawberries and/or blueberries to each muffin tin cup. Make fun faces with berries by leaving berries on top of the muffin mixture if you feel like getting crazy and creative or you can push them down to submerge them into the batter.
9. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-28 minutes for regular-sized muffins and 20-23 minutes for mini-muffins.

These muffins may not brown as well as other muffins since they don’t contain added fats or sugar so just make sure toothpick comes out clean(ish) before you remove them from the oven.

Gobble these up within a day or 2 (trust me… this will not be hard to do) since they will start to dry out without any added fats in the recipe.

Enjoy guys – these are guilt-free AND delicious!  Kids and adults alike seem to equally love these muffins.

This recipe makes approximately 12 full-sized muffins with an additional 8-16 mini-muffins depending on how high you fill each muffin tin cup.

Please share your thoughts, comments and photos with me after you make them! My uber-healthy husband, my picky(ish) daughters as well as my toddler-age great-nephews LOVE these muffins, and I don’t feel an ounce of guilt feeding them these since they are so healthy and delicious!  In fact, my niece now makes these at home regularly for my great-nephews!  See my adorable niece baking photo above and below this text…! 🙂