Gluten Free Banana Spice Muffins

It seems that I often end up with more bananas than I could just eat, and they get over ripe sitting on the counter.  But instead of looking at them as over the hill and ready for tossing, I see them as an opportunity to make something delicious like banana bread or muffins.  I have been making vegan banana muffins for a while and have a good recipe, but I wanted to try making them gluten free.  There are many options for gluten free flour, but I feel that some of the options, like white rice flour are not all that healthy as they are high on the glycemic scale.  So I opted to use quinoa flour which I have had a lot of success baking with.  I also wanted the muffins to be sweetened with somthing lower on the glycemic index, so I chose coconut sugar.  It has a wonderful, slightly nutty flavor that paired well with the banana.  The muffins were deliciously sweet and lightly spiced. You could never tell they were gluten free or vegan.  If you have not tried quinoa flour or coconut sugar, you should check them out!

Author: Amy Lyons O’Neil

Amy has worked for Fresh and Natural Foods since 2006 contributing to the variety of healthful foods we offer. She graduated with a degree in studio art from Bethel University in 2007, but in her senior year of college, found that her passion was with the art of food. She later used her photography and culinary skills to create a vegan food and recipe blog, Fragrant Vanilla Cake. She has also written 3 cookbooks. She specializes in vegan and vegetarian recipes. Local, fresh and organic food has always been her focus in whatever she creates.

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Servings: 12 | Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20-25 minutes | Ready in: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups quinoa flour
• 1 cup coconut sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp Bob's Red Mill baking powder
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 3/4 cup pureed ripe organic banana (about 2 small)
• 1/4 cup Dr. Bronner's unrefined coconut oil
• 1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup Thai Kitcken coconut milk or non-dairy milk
• 2 Tbsp Bragg's apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and position rack in center of oven.

Line a 12 cup standard sized muffin tin with liners.

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, and sugar in a large bowl to blend well. Whisk bananas, oil, vanilla extract, and coconut milk together in small bowl to blend well, then whisk into the flour mixture until well blended. Whisk in cider vinegar and stir quickly (pale swirls will be in the batter, which is the baking soda reacting with the vinegar, which allows the cake to rise since there are no eggs) stir dates.

Transfer batter to prepared tins and bake muffins until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Cool muffins in pans on rack, can be enjoyed while still warm after cooling for about 15 minutes.