Unsweetened Banana Muffins with Chocolate (Carob) Chips

I am always in search of clean eating recipes for me and my family to consume, the entire purpose of this blog. When I use the phrase clean eating, I refer to unprocessed and totally sugar free without any honey, agave, and especially without any artificial sweeteners. Sometimes though....I crave something sweet, usually chocolate...o.k. to be honest the only sweet thing I usually crave is chocolate.

When you bake muffins following this recipe, the ripe bananas add enough sweetness that you do NOT need to add sugar, honey, or sweetener of any sort. Add some cinnamon along with the bananas and the muffins are sweet enough to eat. I have made this recipe before and have even included the recipe on my blog, but this time, we added "carob" chips to the mix for a different twist and to sedate my chocolate craving. To be honest though, "carob" chips are not chocolate and I would prefer 70-80% cocoa chocolate chips with very low sugar content, but the kids find dark chocolate too bitter for their taste buds.

What are "carob" chips you ask? I am so glad you asked..."Carob" chips are made from the carob plant. It is an evergreen plant native to the Mediterranean region, but now grows in other locations, like California. To find out more about "carob" chips, visit this link at eHow Food.

There are some health benefits to eating carob chips. Carob needs less sugar than chocolate to make it sweet, carob chips have one third of the calories of chocolate, and because it is not chocolate, it is safe for animals to eat!

 Ingredients:

6 lg. bananas
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
2/3 cups melted butter
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
3 cups organic whole wheat flour
1 cup "carob" chips or dark chocolate chips (70-80% cocoa content)

Mash bananas. Add cinnamon and slightly beaten eggs. Add melted butter.
Sift dry ingredients together and add to above mixture. Add carob or chocolate chips. Mix until moistened. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. This makes two dozen muffins, which my kids loved as a snack!

Mix the dry ingredients together first. My kids love making this recipe!

Add the wet ingredients to the sifted dry ingredients.

My dear son loves to break the yokes with his fingers.

Truly Sugar Free Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

I am always in search of clean eating recipes for me and my family to consume, the entire purpose of this blog. When I use the phrase clean eating, I refer to unprocessed and totally sugar free without any honey, agave, and especially without artificial sweeteners. When you bake muffins with ripe bananas you do not need to add sugar. Add some cinnamon, and the muffins are sweet enough to eat. The previous banana muffin recipe in my blog not only used brown sugar, but honey as well. The recipe we tried today, truly sugar free, no sweetener what so ever except the bananas themselves.  It was a big hit with the kids, but I can't lay claim to this recipe. I found it online at Hub pages, uploaded by Bob Ewing. His original recipe yielded 12 muffins, not enough for my family, so I doubled the ingredients.

 

 Ingredients:

6 lg. bananas
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
2/3 cups melted butter
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp sea salt
3 cups organic whole wheat flour


Mash bananas. Add cinnamon and slightly beaten eggs. Add melted butter.
Sift dry ingredients together and add to above mixture. Mix until moistened. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. This makes two dozen muffins, which my kids loved as a snack!

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins

Moist Whole Wheat Banana Bread Recipe and Instructions:

Be sure to use ultra ripe bananas for this. Their skins should be mottled black and they should feel soft to the touch. Using what you would normally consider to be ripe bananas will diminish the bread’s rich flavor. Recipe from www.breadtopia.com.

½ cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) unsalted butter
½ cup (3 ¾ ounces) packed light or dark brown sugar
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups mashed ripe banana (3-4 medium to large bananas)
¼ cup (3 ounces) honey
2 large eggs
2 cups (8 ounces) whole wheat flour, traditional or white whole wheat
½ cups (2 ounces) chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Instead of Lightly greasing a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan as the recipe suggested, I put muffin papers in muffin tins. It yielded about 18 muffins.

Beat together the butter, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla in a medium bowl until smooth. Add the banana, honey and eggs, beating until smooth. Add the flour and nuts, stirring until smooth. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups and let it rest at room temperature, uncovered for 10 minutes.
Bake the bread for 50 minutes. I baked the muffins for 10-15 minutes. When baking as a loaf of bread, lay a piece of foil gently across the top and bake until a cake tester (like a toothpick or fork) inserted into the center comes out clean, 10 to 15 minutes more. Remove the bread/muffins from the oven and allow it to cool for 10 minutes before turning it out of the pan onto a rack to cool completely.
My kids loved this recipe and it turned out great! definitely one I will make again.