Baby Blueberry Muffins
These soft baby led weaning blueberry muffins are sugar free, naturally sweetened with banana. They are popular with toddlers too, and are freezer friendly!
Ingredients
- 1 c (135g) plain flour
- 1 tablespoon (30g) wholemeal flour
- ⅓ c (35g) oats quick cook oats are fine
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- Pinch cinnamon
- ½ c (125ml) milk or soy or almond milk for vegan/dairy free muffins
- ¼ c (60ml) olive oil
- 2 large bananas mashed
- ½ c (90g) frozen blueberries *
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200˚C/390˚F
- In a mixing bowl, combine the plain and wholemeal flours, oats, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and cinnamon.
- In another bowl mix the milk, olive oil and mashed bananas together.
- Lightly stir this mixture into the dry ingredients together with the frozen blueberries, taking care not to over mix (I’ve found it’s better to have a few lumps in the batter, otherwise the muffins can be tough).
- Take teaspoons of mixture and pop into a mini muffin tin.
- Bake for 17-20 minutes, until lightly golden and cooked through.
- Leave in the tin for a few minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.
- Keep in airtight container for 3 days.
- The muffins also freeze well and defrost quickly.
Video
Notes
Milk - soy or almond milk works best. If you aren't vegan, then use cows milk.
Oil - I use olive oil, as I like the savoury note it gives to baking. Use vegetable, canola or avocado oil if you prefer a flavourless oil.
Blueberries - Using frozen blueberries in these muffins means they keep their shape, and is a help when blueberries aren't in season! If you don't have any frozen ones, placing them in the freezer to cool when you begin this recipe will help. If you forget, it's not the end of the world, just use fresh blueberries! If you use fresh blueberries, check the muffins after 17 minutes."
Bananas - The riper the banana, the more sweet the muffins will be - and they will be more moist with a very ripe banana. I have found bananas speckled with brown spots to be the best as the muffins are still soft but a little more firm than using very ripe bananas. If you have very brown bananas, this is still a great recipe for using them up, but the muffins won't be quite as fluffy.
Preheat your oven and prepare your muffin tin before you start. Once the raising agents (baking powder and bicarbonate of soda) come into contact with the liquid (milk, oil, bananas) they begin to act and produce air bubbles. You want to be able to capture this by putting them in the oven as quickly as possible so the air bubbles get locked in place by the heat, resulting in light muffins.
Do not overmix your batter. It will make the muffins tough. It is better to have a few small lumps of flour than to overmix!
Check they are cooked by inserting a toothpick into the muffin. If it comes out clean, they are ready. If not, bake a little longer. NOTE: If you use very ripe bananas - by this I mean very brown skins and very soft bananas - they can look moist on a toothpick. In this case, I would suggest actually placing a blunt knife in a muffin - it will sacrifice one (still perfectly edible!) but this way you can see if you've hit a piece of ripe banana, or if the batter still needs to be cooked.
If you use a very ripe banana the muffins can take a couple of minutes longer to cook than if your banana wasn’t as ripe.
Cool the muffins in the tin for 5 minutes before turning out, as they are fragile when warm.
This recipe makes 24 mini muffins. For regular size muffins, cook for another 5-10 minutes, depending on ripeness of banana. This recipe makes 8-10 regular muffins.
Nutrition
Calories: 66kcalCarbohydrates: 9gProtein: 1gFat: 3gSaturated Fat: 1gSodium: 61mgPotassium: 61mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2gVitamin A: 27IUVitamin C: 2mgCalcium: 29mgIron: 1mg
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