Based on our household favorite Banana Bread Muffincakes, these choco-nanner muffins use the same base recipe with some minor eliminations and a simple twist.
So full of chocolatey sweetness, they can easily double as cupcakes.
You (and your kids) won’t believe they’re not that bad for you.
The Eliminations
The eliminations from these muffincakes are designed to make this recipe ultra low-fat. But the flour and sugar swaps also make it low-calorie, gluten-free, and better for diabetics than traditional muffins.
Compared to similar chocolate muffin/cupcake recipes, here’s what we have taken out of our choco-banana muffincakes entirely:
- Egg
The Swaps
Compared to similar chocolate muffin/cupcake recipes, here’s what we’ve swapped in our choco-banana muffins:
With these substitutions, we’ve eliminated a load of calories and nearly all of the fat.
How long do these muffins take?
Us: 50 minutes (30 minutes prep, 20 minutes cook time)
Faster Food Preppers: 35 minutes (15 minutes prep, 20 minutes cook time)
What’s the flavor like?
A bit two-fold.
When you first take a bite, it’s the banana that hits you first (unless your tongue works differently than ours).
After that, the cocoa rolls across your tastebuds and it tastes just like a *light* chocolate muffin or cupcake. (At least the way we make it.)
What’s the texture like?
These choco-banana muffincakes are fairly muffin-like, but remain quite moist when cooked as we cook them.
We also reheat in the toaster oven, so we try to avoid cooking them too dry so they have a little moisture left to lose.
If they seem a bit “wet” to you, you can always bake a few minutes longer.
What can go wrong?
As discussed in our Banana Bread Muffincakes recipe, these muffins can be glitchy. The swaps are extreme and the texture is temperamental.
The most important thing to focus on is the amount of banana/liquid to flour (or overall dry ingredients). Too much liquid, and these muffincakes simply won’t cook all the way through. This makes it essential to use a scale for this recipe (or to be superhuman at estimating banana weights).
The sweet spot for this recipe is around 17-20 ounces of liquid and around 15 ounces of banana (14-16 oz is perfect). That’s the key to getting this one just right.
But here are a few other things to keep in mind before you get started:
Don’t use baking cups.
With the reduction in fat, these muffincakes stick BADLY to baking cups. You’re welcome to try it if you don’t want the clean-up, but we can almost guarantee you’ll be picking pieces of muffincake off the liners or pieces of liner off the muffincakes.
We think it’s best to skip them and just grease the pan.
Grease the pan VERY well.
Same reason as above. Low-fat content makes for a sticky outer crust. Grease well to prevent sticking.
It’s okay to use a mixer.
While many muffins suffer from too much air, we find this recipe actually benefits from some light whipping.
It’s hard to over-mix and a little air will improve your muffin tops (if you’re into that sort of thing).
A mixer also helps break down the clumps in these clump-prone flours.
Pureeing is better than mashing.
Banana is the main liquid in this recipe, so it needs to behave as a liquid.
Once you’re done pulverizing it, the banana should have only tiny chunks left in it (if any) or you won’t have enough liquid in your batter.
Mashing is okay if you’ve got the stamina for it, but processing to a puree works best.
The Recipe
Choco-Banana Muffincakes
A low-fat, low-calorie, gluten-free, choco-banana muffin.
Ingredients
- 1 c oat flour
- ⅜ c cassava flour
- ¼ c coconut flour
- ⅛ c cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ⅛ tsp salt
- 3 to 4 overripe bananas (14-16 ounces)
- 2 oz applesauce
- 4 drops monk fruit extract
- Water to texture
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Grease muffin tin well. (We use coconut oil.)
3. Combine the flours, cocoa power, baking soda, and salt. (Fork the flours into cups to measure.)
4. Mix the dry ingredients thoroughly to break down large chunks of flour.
5. Puree bananas in a food processor or mash (very well) by hand.
6. Add the applesauce and monk fruit extract to the banana puree/mashed bananas and stir well.
7. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Mix together. (Make sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to incorporate all of the flour.)
8. Lift the spoon or spatula from the bowl. Chunks of the batter should fall off. If no chunks fall, add water a tablespoon at a time until the batter thins enough that it falls off the spoon.
9. Divide into muffin cups. A ¼-c measuring cup is perfect for this.
10. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes.
Notes
Coconut flour especially has a tendency to clump. Using a mixer to combine your dry ingredients will eliminate flour balls that can end up in your muffins.
Ideally, you should puree the bananas for this recipe in a food processor. Mashing can make these muffincakes too dry.
Avoid touching monk fruit extract directly with your spoon or spatula when mixing. The extract can cling to the spoon and you'll lose some of it. Instead, fold some of the puree over the extract first and then stir.
This recipe makes 9-10 muffincakes in its base form. If you want 10 muffincakes, fill your ¼-c measuring cup nearly full. If you fill the ¼ cup completely, you won't have enough batter left for the final muffin. If you want 9 muffincakes, fill your ¼-c measuring cup completely full and you'll have a small amount of batter left for topping off.
If you plan to add nuts or other ingredients to this recipe, it's best to divide the batter into at least 10 muffins.
We cook our muffincakes to just done (20 minutes) so they will still be moist when we reheat them. But they could go longer without drying out. If you find 20 minutes leaves your muffincakes too "wet," add five minutes to their cook time.
Nutritional Information
The nutritional information for our choco-banana muffincakes is based on ten muffins.
It should be noted that while these choco-banana muffincakes have a fair amount of sugar, they contain zero added sugar.
The Additions
Our choco-banana muffincakes benefit from many of the same additions as their mother recipe, our Banana Bread Muffincakes, but lean a little more in the “cupcake” direction.
We recommend the following accompaniments:
- Walnuts or pecans
- Cacao nibs or dark chocolate chips
- Peanut butter, butterscotch or caramel chips
- Shredded coconut
- Icing
Why our choco-banana muffincakes?
These muffincakes pull double-duty. With the swaps and eliminations, they’re only a slightly less healthy breakfast option, but can easily be pulled off as cupcakes as well (especially if you go the icing route).
Like their mother muffincake recipe, they are surprisingly filling. At only calories and grams of fat , they pack in a whopping grams of fiber.
While they may not be the most healthful breakfast option, as muffins they are quick and tasty, and if you swap out your traditional chocolate cupcake recipe with this one instead, you’re doing yourself a real service.