Jeff’s Grain-Free Banana Nut Muffins

I may be the main cook at our house, but Jeff is the baker. And I love him for it. I like to cook meals that are inspired by whatever I have on hand, and that are pretty forgiving and handle lots of substitutions. Baking is more of an exact science, however, and I often don’t have the patience for the experimentation and copious measuring required for developing baking recipes. But Jeff, wonderful man that he is, does.
He cheerfully makes the family breakfasts on the weekends, and I am always hoping he’ll do a little baking. He usually does, and it makes me feel spoiled. He came up with these a couple of months ago, when I told him I was really craving banana nut muffins. I think I’ll keep him.

Now, let me say this about these muffins: I am pretty picky when it comes to grain-free baked goods. The texture is very often all wrong, and they can just be super dry and hard to swallow. I don’t like to do “substitute” foods, and try to stick with recipes that are just naturally made without grains. Things like muffins are an exception, of course, so I don’t share them with you unless I think they’re pretty perfect! These have a fantastic texture, and there’s nothing about them that would suggest that they are made for food allergy sufferers. They are just totally delicious, and well worth baking.

Jeff’s Grain-Free Banana Nut Muffins

What You’ll Need

• 2 1/2 cups (375 g) almond flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1/2 cup coconut sugar or brown sugar
• 1 cup (75 g) shredded coconut (unsweetened)
• 2 cups (100g) mashed ripe banana
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup roughly chopped walnuts or pecans

What to Do

1. Preheat your oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and line or grease your muffin pans. (I like these and  these.)
2. Combine your (first six) dry ingredients in a large bowl and mix together.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, coconut oil, mashed banana, and vanilla extract.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix just until completely combined. Stir in the nuts. (The batter will be pretty thick.)
5. Portion evenly into your muffin pan, and bake for about 45 minutes– check by inserting a toothpick–when it comes out clean, they are ready. Something Jeff does that I love is takes the muffins out of their molds and flips them over to bake for another 10 minutes– this makes the outside crispy all around. This step is optional, of course!

Serve them with butter or yogurt cheese, and enjoy! These banana nut muffins are great to double and freeze, too. A simple weekday breakfast is to serve these with scrambled eggs, or just a hard boiled egg or two. We do this all of the time when we are traveling– Jeff makes muffins and boils the eggs the night before, and we grab them for the morning car ride.