a vegan banana-bread muffin surprise

In a desperate attempt to rid my mom's kitchen of over-ripened bananas, I decided to make some banana bread. Our ingredients limited, and my diet restricted (avoiding dairy and wheat when possible), I went on the hunt for a recipe. I found several appealing ones via Pinterest, but the one that caught my attention was the vegan and gluten-free banana bread by Baker Bettie. You can see her original recipe here.

But, due to my limitations, I had to modify it slightly, so this is what I ended up using:

• 2 1/2 cups of rolled oats - blended to a finer 'flour' using a food processor
• 2 large bananas - mashed
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• 1/4 cup raw honey (instead of sugar)
• 1/4 cup maple syrup (instead of sugar)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (I love cinnamon, so I added a little more)
• 2 Tbs of plain almond milk
• 1/2 cup of vegan chocolate chips

I mixed it all up with a hand mixer, blending the wet ingredients first, before adding them to the oat flour. We didn't have a loaf pan, so I decided to use a muffin tin instead. This recipe yielded 9 muffins, and after 20 minutes in the 425 degree oven, they turned out PERFECTLY!

The honey and maple syrup balanced each other out quite well, and the chocolates added just the right amount of sweetness for these 'desert' muffins. The heartiness of the oat flour makes them dense enough to keep you from eating the whole batch in one go.

What I loved the most about this recipe, is that we were able to use staple items that were already in my mom's kitchen. Even if we didn't have chocolate chips, the muffins would have been a success.