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Banana Mocha Chip Muffins

October 23, 2017 · Natalie 36 Comments

Sweet banana base, cold brew kick, and lots of chocolate chips make these vegan + paleo Banana Mocha Chip Muffins an ultra fluffy indulgent breakfast or sweet treat!

If only life came with a homemade muffin on demand button I feel like the whole affair would be much more manageable.

You think I am joking. I am not. Just consider for a moment – they are the ideal cozy, cute, can’t-be-mad-while-consuming food. I have yet to find another baked good that can check all those boxes quite so effortlessly.

What’s that? You need a bulleted list of hypotheticals to convince you…

Monday morning when you didn’t meal prep (shocker!) and breakfast is like: I’m here, it’s time for me! Muffin.
Busy 4pm when you are trying to squeeze as much productivity as possible out of the last little bit of your workday motivation but need sustenance that tastes like cake NOW. Mocha muffin.
Lazy day mug of warm cozy coffee or tea that is just begging for a caffeinated companion. Mocha chip muffin.
Just casually being a human doing your human thing with impeccable taste in snacks. Banana Mocha Chip Muffin.

So now that you just saw your entire week flash before your eyes, I think we can agree the 5 minute effort investment it takes to throw this batter together in the blender more than pays for itself in snack problem-solving and overall positive vibes.

You’re feeling all Monday We Got This now too, right?

See here’s my dilemma with coffee in baked goods. In the past I have used instant espresso powder, but instant espresso powder is a) not something I typically have in my pantry and b) not something I feel good about consuming after 3pm. And if there are muffins in the house I am going to want to eat one after 3pm. Instant espresso definitely delivers on flavor, but I prefer to have my muffin and sleep sometime in the near-ish future too.

Hey, what’s coffee and super trendy and less potent but still so good in muffins?

Why yes, I do mean COLD BREW.

No I didn’t choose cold brew mostly completely because it’s really really easy. Effort level = unscrewing a lid. Fun fact: it also comes concentrated which means more flavor without over-liquidifying the recipe. And the caffeine equivalent of one full cup of coffee spread across six muffins means napping later is a very real possibility.

The flavor is certainly more subtle than the BAM-POW spoonful of espresso in your muffin batter route, so if you want to add that I will not stop you. If you don’t have cold brew concentrate, a half cup of very strongly brewed coffee will work too. If coffee isn’t your jam (wait…why are you still reading?) then swap it out for non-dairy milk and enjoy your coffee-less chocolate chip banana muffins like this.

The cold brew concentrate I used happened to be already mocha. Which means it happened to have chocolate flavor in it too. Which means I happened to not add cacao powder to the batter. Which happened to be the best decision because with mini chips in every bite the muffins were plenty mocha for me but not overpoweringly CHOCOLATE.

You do you though. As long as “you” involves chocolate chips and lots of them.

It feels a little late in the game to bring this up, but these are BANANA mocha chip muffins btw. No maple syrup. No dates. Just bananas – sweet and simple.

This entire batter-made-in-a-blender situation is heavy on the simple. Only 7 ingredients (including chocolate chips!), a couple of buttons to press, and a few spoonfuls to plop into a pan. Does this still qualify as baking even?

I used almond flour to keep these mocha chip muffins grain-free. You will need either ground flax or tapioca starch too, personally I prefer the texture with the tapioca. I did not test it with oat flour so you will have to experiment on your own. But almond flour + tapioca starch does make for the most amazing muffin texture ever…just sayin.

If you really want an oat flour muffin/cupcake with coffee flavor, I’d recommend this recipe instead -> Vegan Caramel Espresso Cupcakes

Muffins emerging from the oven perfect golden domes with a tiny bit of overflow and just a few crusty crackles on top. Those tell-tale signs before even prying them out of the pan that this is it. This is THE batch. The culmination of all those trials finally coming together in the ultimate soft fluffy inner surround by subtly crisp outer. This moment of muffin victory fills my heart with joy on a puppies and rainbows level.

Happy mocha muffin ~~baking~~ joy-creating to you!

Banana Mocha Chip Muffins

★★★★★ 5 from 4 reviews

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 45 minutes
Yield: 6 muffins 1x
Category: muffins
Method: baking
Cuisine: american

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Description

Sweet banana base, cold brew kick, and chocolate chips make these vegan and paleo Banana Mocha Chip Muffins an ultra fluffy indulgent breakfast or sweet treat!

Ingredients

Scale

3 (325g) ripe bananas
1/2 cup (120g) cold brew concentrate (*)
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup (70g) tapioca starch (**)
2 1/4 cup (250g) almond flour (***)
1/3 cup (65g) chocolate chips

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a high speed blender or food processor, blend the bananas briefly until no large chunks remain. (Or you could mash/mix by hand.)
Add the rest of the ingredients (except the chocolate chips) and blend until combined. The batter should be very thick and barely able to blend, so if it seems too pour-able add an extra 1/4 cup almond flour.
Stir/mix in the chocolate chips.
Spray or line a muffin pan with paper liners. Divide the batter between 6-8 muffins filing each to the top if you want nice rounded domed muffins.
Bake for 30-35 minutes at 350F or until golden brown and bounce back when lightly pressed in the center.
Remove from the oven. Cool for 30 minutes before removing from the pan. Enjoy! Keep in the fridge in an airtight container for up to a week.

Notes

*Or very strongly brewed coffee. Or 1/2 cup non-dairy milk + 1 tsp instant espresso powder. Or if you don’t like coffee at all, just use non-dairy milk. **You can sub with arrowroot or cornstarch. Or an equal amount of ground flax (60g) although they will be a bit more delicate/crumbly. ***I have not tested these with oat flour. You can experiment on your own, but since there is no nut butter or oil they will be quite dry. I’d recommend this coffee cupcake recipe instead that is designed for oat flour.

Keywords: baking, snack, dessert, banana, chocolate, paleo, vegan

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Roasted Butternut Squash Ice Cream

October 19, 2017 · Natalie 14 Comments

Cold creamy and…cozy? Yes it’s possible and it’s called Roasted Butternut Squash Ice Cream. Cinnamon-spiced, maple-sweetened, vegan, and no-churn!

Is it weird that I sorta feel like I am cheating on pumpkin right now?

I love pumpkin ice cream. Deeply. But I am crushing prettyyyyyy hard on this alternative orange squash stuff. Pumpkin doesn’t need to know.

To be fair, this butternut recipe comes to the game with a few unfair advantages…

Novelty. We’re more than halfway to Halloween, so pumpkin {insert any dish here} has already happened on the internet. Twelve times with subtle variations. Butternut is a welcomed breath of fresh crisp fall air. Fall air is fresh and crisp, right? Cooler climate friends, fill me in.

Ease. So you probably missed it, but there is a silent and invisible “N” in front of the ice cream part. This recipe is made like nice cream only with butternut instead of banana. After the butternut is frozen you are only approximately 5 minutes and some cinnamon away from butternut squash ice cream at any given moment. Probably less – how savvy are you with a blender?

30 minutes at 400F. That’s right, it’s roasted. No matter how lazy I am, not even I can honestly say that canned puree is as good as roasted. At home. With love. Although I did buy it pre-cut…let’s not get carried away now.

All those reasons combined with the fact that this butternut ice cream was more recently on my mind/spoon are why I am sorta kinda MEGA obsessed. But I’m playing it cool. And not to worry, butternut can’t compete in the jack-o-lantern arena. Being scooped out, poked with sharp objects, and internally lit on fire – that’s all you, pumpkin.

I see you watermelon carvers. I see you and I say save your antics for the appropriate season.

Obviously there is more than just squash in that blender. You will also need:

Coconut milk. Nothing too crazy, just the light kind is perfect. You could use almond/any other milk but it won’t be as ice CREAMy.
Cinnamon + vanilla + salt because it’s fall so those are a given.
Maple syrup if you want your ice cream sweeter than squash is naturally. I used about two tablespoons for the whole batch, it doesn’t take much.
Frozen butternut squash in large quantities. Because the holidays are all about sharing, so it would be rude to not make extra…for your tomorrow self.

Yes I know “the holidays” usually refers to November/December affairs, but I’m just getting in the zone, okay? And how do we know we won’t still be butternut ice cream blending by then. Odds are you and your fuzzy-socked, blanket-burritoed self probably will.

In the name of roasting once and ice creaming all week, I roasted 2 pans worth of cubed or crinkle cut squash. That may seem like a lot, but it will seem like a lot less after roasting. (Also frozen squash makes for very yum smoothies, so there’s never too much!) The shape doesn’t matter, although it seems there is a consensus: crinkle cut = better. If you are a lucky enough ducky to live near a Trader Joe’s you can find it there already cut or cubed for pretty cheap. If you are a brave enough ducky to cut your own, please lookout for those precious little fingertips of yours.

After roasting, cooling, transferring to a bag, and freezing overnight (more work to say than to actually do, promise!) now comes the blending part. Which is my favorite part because it effortlessly flows right on into the eating out of the blender part.

If you blend all the frozen squash at once, you will end up with about four servings. Unless you are throwing your annual Butternut Squash Ice Cream Party, I recommend blending just half at a time because it really doesn’t re-freeze very well after blending. Any less than half will be difficult to blend. You will need a high-speed blender with a tamper for this, or a food processor. Either way you will probably have to stop and scrape down the sides a few times as you go.

The end result is orange and autumnal beyond your wildest wishes. If you’ve ever wondered why it’s called BUTTERnut squash before, you won’t again after you experience this texture.

Turns out cold AND cozy is possible after all.