Banana Protein Muffins

The banana espresso chocolate chip muffins from Baked: New Frontiers are delicious and you should make them straightaway. They are better than any banana bread, and they make a fantastic breakfast or coffee/tea-time/midnight snack. I've gone way past my limit of three recipes from Baked, but that's okay because more people need to know how incredible every single recipe they publish is.

One important note - blend your bananas. Blending my bananas instead of just mashing them has completely changed my opinion of banana-based baked goods. I'm not a huge fan of trace fruit chunks in bread-type things, especially in the case of banana, where I find suddenly encountering the texture and taste a little off-putting. Freezing my ripe bananas, then just defrosting them somewhat, and blending them until smooth has made me much more willing to bake with banana.

However, this post isn't about the exact recipe from Baked. Instead, I'm sharing the high-protein, (low sugar) version of these Caleb conceptualized. I had sent him my adapted recipe for these, where I used Greek yogurt in place of the whole milk and didn't add any chocolate chips. He liked them, but wanted to try out some new protein powder he'd gotten that could be used as a replacement for some of the flour in baking. I made four batches of these, the original adapted recipe, a high-protein version, a low sugar (Splenda) version, and the double mutant: a high protein, low sugar variant. Caleb invited some friends over, and we did a taste-test, where I was the only one who knew which sample was what variant. Somewhat unexpectedly, all three of them preferred the high-protein, low-sugar version. Lo and behold, the protein banana muffin recipe was born.

Banana Protein Muffins

Scrumptious protein-filled banana muffins. This could also be made as a bread, baked for about 60 minutes.

5 from 1 vote

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Cuisine: American

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 25 minutes minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes minutes

Servings: 12

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups very ripe bananas about 4 medium
• ¾ cup baking Splenda*
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• ¼ cup Greek yogurt nonfat or 2%
• 1 large egg
• 1 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup protein powder**
• 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder optional
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips optional

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Spray a 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.
• Puree the bananas in a blender. (This will yield much smoother muffins than simply mashing them.)
• In a medium bowl, stir together the banana, Splenda, melted butter, yogurt, vanilla extract, and egg.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, instant espresso powder (if using), baking soda and salt.
• Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients. Pour the wet ingredients into the well and stir just until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips (if using).
• Fill each muffin cup about ¾ full.
• Bake in the center of the oven for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.
• Move the muffin pan to a cooling rack, cool for 10-15 minutes. Remove muffins from the pan and let them finish cooling on the cooling rack.
• Muffins can be stored in an airtight container with a paper towel inside for up to 3 days.

Notes

*If you want to use regular sugar, use ½ granulated sugar and ¼ cup brown sugar, packed, in place of the baking Splenda.
**We use the Quest protein powder multi-purpose mix. It's crucial that you not use a higher oven temperature than 325 F with this flour replacement.

Recipe has 169 calories, 8g of protein, 8g fat, and 16g carbohydrates per muffin.