One of my favorite things to do is thumb through cookbooks and, while my collection isn’t large, each book is treasured for the adventures that it can bring.  I flip through the books when I’m trying to decide on a grocery list or in between sips of coffee on a weekend morning, or when I am waiting for the oven timer to go off and am putting off washing all the dirty dishes I just made making something else.  The inspiration for these muffins comes from Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Cooking: Five Delicious Ways to Incorporate Whole and Natural Foods into Your Cooking which I got several years ago from my cousin Michael.  The photographs are beautiful and the food all looks so tantalizing that I am surprised I didn’t come across this recipe sooner.  Need to schedule in more cookbook time, for sure.

Nevertheless, this recipe showed up just in time because I was armed with ripe bananas, ready for the next cooking project.  Most people make dishes with bananas because there is one too many close to their expiration dates.  I’m just the opposite.  I love using nanners in all kinds of things so I buy them in bulk and look for reasons to mix them in.  Because I had to make the muffins grain-free, my adaptation is quite different than Heidi’s but hopefully the essence of the muffins remains.

Espresso Banana Muffins

Makes 12 regular sized muffins and 1 large one

4 eggs

1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon stevia

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed (about 3)

1 tablespoon espresso powder (or 2 tablespoons instant coffee granules)

2 cups almond flour

4 tbsp coconut flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Grease or line muffin pan.
  2. Mix wet ingredients together with the bananas and espresso.
  3. Mix dry ingredients together.
  4. Combine wet and dry thoroughly and fold in half of the walnuts.
  5. Fill muffin pan and sprinkle remaining half of nuts on muffins.
  6. Bake for 18 minutes.  Large muffins will take closer to 25 minutes.

The result is a really fragrant and moist muffin full of chunky pieces of banana and scented just so with coffee.  So good!

Thanks, Miguel!