Coconut flour banana muffins are an easy-to-make breakfast snack that can be eaten by yourself, served to your family and friends, or can even be transported on the go in a large ziplock bag. Few ingredients can beat the taste of bananas when making baked recipes. Mixing bananas with muffins is a creative way to make muffins healthier while still retaining their amazing taste. Moreover, this recipe is both gluten-free and paleo-friendly, since we’re using coconut flour as the base.
You don’t need a huge amount of ingredients to start making banana muffins from scratch. Being a very customizable baking recipe, it only requires a handful of core ingredients. These include eggs, flour, sugar, milk, butter, and bananas, all of which will be covered more in-depth soon. You can change and mix these ingredients around according to your diet preferences, if you want to.
For example, if you’re vegan, you can opt to use flax eggs instead of regular chicken eggs. If you’re on a keto diet, you can remove the sugar entirely from the recipe or use stevia. The versatility of baking recipes like banana muffins is a nice boon to have, making them more accessible to a wider range of people.
Why use coconut flour over regular flour?
For many recipes, especially banana muffins, trading all-purpose flour for other flours is a good idea. A slightly sweet, yet still easy-to-use flour substitute is coconut flour. Coconut flour is gluten-free, paleo-friendly, keto-friendly, and vegan. Not only that, it also contains important vitamins, minerals, and macronutrients that all-purpose flour doesn’t have. This flour shares many nutritional similarities to almond flour.
Coconut flour is made from a base of coconut, so it retains all the nutritional value that coconuts have. The following is a list of some of the health benefits coconut flour has that wheat flour doesn’t have.
- It’s crazy high in iron, making it awesome for vegans who need to get more iron in their diet. Iron is abundant in red meat like beef and lamb, so coconut flour is great for vegans.
- Coconut flour has more macronutrients per gram than wheat flour.
-It has 2x more protein than wheat flour (24g per cup vs. 12g per cup) and a similar fat content to AP flour. However, coconut flour’s fat content is less processed and more balanced than wheat flour.
-It has less carbohydrates than wheat flour as well (72g per cup vs. 95.4 per cup). Even nicer, a whopping 40g of the carbohydrates per cup found in coconut flour exist in the form of healthy fibers.
- The sweet taste of coconut flour helps augment the sugar level in certain recipes. This means that you can remove some granulated sugar in coconut flour baking recipes and still have a delicious, sweet taste to the product.
- This flour is excellent at controlling blood sugar levels and spikes. Coconut flour is not very starchy like wheat flour is, so its glycemic index rating is much lower.
Because coconut flour is high in fiber, it is best to eat it in moderation. This is irrelevant in most cases, however, because it is usually only used in baking recipes.
Coconut Flour Banana Muffins Ingredients
These ingredients are necessary when making your banana muffins.
- Coconut flour. For every 1 cup of regular flour, use 1/4 to 1/3 cup of coconut flour because coconut flour is denser. (This is VERY important!!)
- Coconut milk. Milk works great in this recipe because coconut flour is highly absorbent.
- Sugar. White sugar makes the banana muffins taste better.
- Baking soda. Required to make the muffins rise during baking.
- Salt. Acts as a finishing touch to the taste of your muffin batter.
- Vanilla extract. Adds a bit of vanilla flavor.
- Bananas. Greatly enhances the flavor of any muffin recipe. You must mash your bananas.
- Eggs. They bind the muffin batter together. More eggs are required than a normal muffin recipe because coconut flour is very absorbent.
- Butter. Adds richness and additional moisture.
- Chocolate chips, rolled oats, and certain seeds like flax and pumpkin are great optional mix-ins for this recipe.
Coconut Flour Banana Muffins
Equipment
- 1 whisk
- 2 medium bowls
- 1 muffin tin
- non-stick cooking spray for greasing the pan
Ingredients
- ½ cup coconut flour
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup unsweetened full-fat coconut milk
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1½ tsp baking soda
- 3 large bananas, mashed
- ½ tsp salt
- ⅓ cup melted butter, unsalted
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- ¾ cups optional ingredients like chocolate chips, seeds, or oats optional
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F (176°C).
- Line a 12-cup muffin tin with foil liners and grease each liner with cooking spray.
- Stir the coconut milk with a whisk until it is smooth with no clumps. Then, transfer the milk to a medium bowl and add the eggs, sugar, vanilla, mashed bananas, and butter. Whisk all together until completely smooth.
- Sift coconut flour, salt, and baking soda in a separate bowl. Create a small hole in the center, and fold in the wet mixture. Whisk until smooth. If the batter is too thick and/or dry, add some water (1 or 2 tablespoons).
- Spoon the batter into each of your 12 greased muffin slots. Do not fill more than 2/3 full for each slot, and if there is more batter, you may use a second muffin tin.
- Bake in your preheated oven for 20 minutes. Use the toothpick test to determine if your muffins are done or not. The tops of the muffins should be spongy and springy in texture.
- Transfer the muffins to a wire rack or some heat-resistant surface to let them cool off when they are finished. Serve when ready.
How To Store Coconut Flour Banana Muffins
Muffins can be stored in all three temperature settings: room temperature, chilled, and frozen.
For room temperature storage, wrap all your banana muffins in an airtight plastic bag. Then, place it in a dark and cool area in your pantry. It can last up to four days long when stored this way.
To refrigerate your muffins, wrap them the same way as before and place them in your fridge. It tends to last longer this way, but I recommend eating them no later than a week.
Finally, freezing your muffins is the best way to store them long-term. Place your muffins in one or more airtight freezer-safe containers lined with foil and place them in your freezer. Frozen muffins are able to last up to 3 months long.
