I originally came up with the recipe for these sugar free muffins as a baby led weaning banana muffin recipe, when I was looking for portable blw snacks. (Hence the recipe makes 24 mini muffins rather than larger ones.) Since sharing them, these banana and pear muffins have been the most popular blw recipes on the blog, and for good reason.
They are so easy to make, which is pretty important when you have one hand or making them during nap time! Just two bowls: one for the dry ingredients, and one for the wet (including the bananas and grated pear.)
I would say these easy banana muffins are about as healthy as banana muffins can get:
- They’re naturally sweetened with banana and pear rather than loaded with refined sugar.
- Note: The riper the bananas are, the sweeter the muffins will be.
- They are made with olive oil, rather than using butter or margarine, which makes the muffins tender. You can’t taste the olive oil.
Muffins make such a great portable snack, and I continue to make them a lot, along with these other baby led weaning snacks that have since turned into favourite kid snacks: Vegan Blueberry Muffins, no added sugar Pear Flapjack and nut free Spinach pesto pinwheels
Tips to make these healthy banana muffins the best they can be:
- Mash the bananas well, especially if making mini banana muffins, as the chunks of banana can seem quite squishy and not popular with babies and toddlers that have texture issues.
- Stir the baking powder and bicarb of soda into the flour well. I didn’t do this once and the bicarb stuck in clumps and there were brown bitter clumps in the muffins.
- Once you add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, DON’T overmix. This can make the muffins heavy. It is best to leave a few small lumps of unmixed flour.
Do these sugar free banana muffins freeze?
Yes, they do. Make sure they are cold, then wrap well and put in a container or bag. Take out as many as you like to defrost. They will keep up to 6 weeks, after that they can become dry.
Substitutes:
Pear: use a grated apple instead.
Mixed Spice: Use the same amount of ground cinnamon (You can also leave out the spices altogether)
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Banana Pear Muffins
Author: Robyn
Ingredients
- 90 g wholemeal plain flour
- 50 g plain flour
- ½ teaspoon mixed spice
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon bicarb of soda
- 2 medium to large very ripe bananas mashed
- 1 egg beaten
- 70 ml olive oil
- 1 medium ripe pear or apple, peeled
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170˚C/340˚F
- Mix the flours, mixed spice, baking powder and bicarb together in a large bowl.
- In another bowl, mix the mashed bananas with the egg and olive oil. Finely grate the pear (or apple) straight into the egg mixture, to capture any juice that comes from grating the fruit.
- Lightly mix the wet and dry ingredients together – if you mix too much it can make the muffins heavy.
- Spoon into a mini muffin tray – about 1 heaped teaspoon mixture per muffin (they should be quite full).
- Bake for 15 minutes, until golden and springy to touch.
- Leave in tin a couple of minutes then move to wire rack to cool completely.
HAVE YOU MADE THIS RECIPE?
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Or just leave a comment below!
Helen Tonkinson says
Delicious – I didn’t have a muffin pan to make individual ones so baked it a little longer in a loaf tin – it worked a treat
Robyn says
Thanks Helen 🙂 what a great idea to bake it in a loaf tin!
Alex says
These are fantastic – we love them for an easy and healthy breakfast!
Robyn says
They are delicious for breakfast – and portable too for those breakfasts on the run!
Jaimie says
These look divine! Ive never thought to add pear to banana bread, cake or muffins… what a great idea!
Robyn says
Thanks Jaimie, it adds a lovely sweetness without adding sugar 🙂