Looking to bake the best Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins?
You can prepare our quick and easy Buckwheat Banana Muffins recipe at home in less than an hour.
Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins are a perfect sweet breakfast or on the go snack. We like to enjoy hot muffins right out of the oven, slathered with ricotta, cream cheese or butter.
You can also serve Buckwheat Banana Muffins as a decadent dessert accompanied by scoops of ice cream, chopped nuts, chocolate fudge sauce and sliced bananas.
These healthy and nutritious gluten free muffins feature eggs, mashed ripe banana, Greek yogurt, buckwheat flour, oat flour, almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and semisweet chocolate chips.
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History of Muffins
A muffin is an individual-sized, baked product most commonly associated with morning mealtime. It’s one of the most popular on-the-go breakfasts that can easily be made ahead and stored in the freezer to enjoy later.
Muffins can refer to two distinct baked goods, a part-raised unsweetened flatbread that is baked and then cooked on a griddle, and a cupcake-like sweet or savoury quickbread that is leavened with baking powder and baked in a mold.
While the most common quickbread muffins are sweetened (such as lemon blueberry muffins, mincemeat muffins and morning glory muffins), there are also savoury varieties such as jalapeno cheddar cornbread muffins and cheddar apple muffins.
The flatbread “English Muffin” variety is of British origin, and dates from at least the early 18th century, while the quickbread originated in Canada and America during the 19th century.
One 19th century source suggests that muffins may be related to the Greek bread maphula, a cake baked on a hearth or griddle. Culinary historians also look to the Old French mou-pain, meaning soft bread, which may have been corrupted into “mouffin.”
The word is first found in print in 1703, spelled moofin; it is of uncertain origin but possibly derived from the Low German Muffen, the plural of Muffe meaning a small cake. The expression muffin-man, meaning a street seller of muffins, is attested in a 1754 poem, which includes the line: “Hark! the shrill Muffin-Man his Carol plies…”
One of Canada’s top selling cookbooks of the 1980s was Muffin Mania, which helped popularize muffin making from Newfoundland to British Columbia. Homemade muffins were originally prepared as a healthy breakfast option, high-fibre mid-afternoon snack or low calorie dessert.
In 1997, muffins were popularized once again in Seinfeld’s now famous “The Muffin Tops,” episode. Like many muffin lovers, Elaine shared her love for only eating muffin tops. She hilariously talks about the fact that muffin stumps are not worthy of consumption as they don’t have the desirable crunchy texture. She shares the idea of opening a store that sells just muffin tops with her ex-boss and is outraged when he steals her idea.
When he offers her 30% of the profits to help his struggling business, they initially give the unused stumps to a homeless shelter. But after they get complaints about the missing muffin tops by a charity worker, they have to get rid of them elsewhere. Newman eventually takes the muffin stumps off their hands, smiling with glee!
Best Muffin Tools & Equipment
Before making a batch of moist Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins make sure your kitchen is outfitted with essential bakers tools.
- Mixing Bowl Set: It’s important to have a set of durable mixing bowls. We love stainless steel mixing bowls with a good grip. When making muffins you’ll typically need a large mixing bowl to sift your dry ingredients into, and a medium or small mixing bowl to beat your wet ingredients.
- Measuring Cups: Ensure you have a set of measuring cups with a flat top rather than a spout, so you can easily use a knife to level off your dry ingredients like flour and sugar.
- Measuring Spoons: We love these durable stainless steel measuring spoons that will help you accurately measure spices, baking soda and baking powder.
- Whisk: This stainless steel whisk has a great grip and is helpful when beating eggs into other wet ingredients.
- Sieve: It’s essential to have this tool in your kitchen so you can ensure all your dry ingredients are separated and don’t clump in the wet batter.
- Bakers Scale: Use this digital scale to weigh flour and other ingredients that require a weight measurement.
- Spatula: We love this rubber spatula as it also acts as a spoon so you can easily drop batter into each greased muffin cup.
- Muffin Tins: We only use silicone muffin tins as they allow you to easily remove baked muffins from the tin with minimal baking spray required.
- Baking Spray: Ensure your cupboards are stocked with baking spray so your muffins don’t get stubborn and refuse to slide out of the pan.
- Cooling Rack: A sturdy cooling rack is a must to ensure your muffins cool without falling apart or getting soggy. They need breathing space to let out the steam before storing.
- Storage Containers: We love doubling our muffin recipes so we have leftovers to store in the fridge or freezer to enjoy later.
My Family Loves Homemade Buckwheat Banana Muffins
One of my fondest memories growing up as a kid was waking up in the morning at our family cottage in Muskoka and smelling freshly baked muffins.
My family’s two favourite recipes were Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins and Lemon Blueberry Muffins. In the summer we’d forage for wild blueberries and incorporate them into out favourite baked goods. My sister was the family blueberry fan while I was mostly obsessed with the marriage of banana and chocolate.
As an adult I’ve enjoyed playing around in the kitchen when baking muffins. In developing this recipe I swapped out traditional wheat flour by testing combinations of almond, oat and buckwheat flour.
I baked this gluten free muffin recipe 3 times, changing the ratio of gluten free flours to create perfectly crunchy and moist Buckwheat Banana Muffins.
Love baking for your family? Check out our best healthy muffins for kids list and guide to vegetarian muffins!
Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins Health Benefits
Our homemade gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins are packed full of healthy ingredients!
Containing starch and fibre, bananas are an excellent superfood for digestive health. They are a good source of heart-healthy potassium, as well as amino acids and vitamin B6, which help keep your brain healthy.
Eggs contain two vital nutrients that are not present in many foods: iodine and vitamin D. Eggs are also rich in tissue-building protein and vitamin B12, which helps your body manufacture blood cells.
Packed with calcium and friendly probiotic bacteria, yogurt helps keep your bones strong and your gut healthy. Yogurt may also help reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes and some types of cancer.
Containing more protein, fibre, vitamin E and calcium that other nuts, almonds may reduce the risk of heart disease, keep your bones healthy, and help your body absorb essential nutrients.
Proving more soluble fibre than any other grain, oats also contain slow-release, low-GI carbohydrates. Oats are also rich in beta-glucan, which helps reduce high cholesterol and maintain blood sugar levels, and vitamin B1, which helps your body convert food into energy.
Buckwheat is a highly nutritious whole grain that many people consider to be a superfood. Among its health benefits, buckwheat may improve heart health, promote weight loss, and help manage diabetes. Buckwheat is a good source of protein, fiber, and energy.
Nutmeg is said to relieve pain, soothe indigestion, strengthen cognitive function, detoxify the body, boost skin health, reduce insomnia, increase immune system function and improve blood circulation.
Rich in energy-boosting manganese, cinnamon is also antibacterial and may protect your brain against Alzheimer’s disease.
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Buying VS Making Homemade Muffins
Today, muffins are often sold at grocery stores, McDonald’s cafes and coffee shops like Starbucks and Tim Horton’s. Unfortunately most commercially prepared muffins are simply cupcakes without the icing.
Read the ingredients list and you’ll find store bought muffins are full of sugar, fat and “flavourings” rather than real fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs. The excessive sugar, salt, fat and additives in commercial muffin recipes allow the grocery stores and coffee shops to extend the shelf life so they don’t go stale as quickly as a homemade muffin would.
The best way to enjoy healthy muffins is by preparing them at home, allowing you to control the proportion of ingredients. We suggest eating muffins fresh the day they are prepared. If you have any leftovers muffins pack 3-4 in a ziplock bag in your fridge and simply warm them up the next day in the oven. You can use a microwave to reheat muffins but they won’t produce the desired crunchy texture.
Any remaining Buckwheat Banana Muffins should be stored in the freezer and can keep for 2-3 months. We like to double our muffin recipes when we prepare them so we have a storage of yummy muffins in the freezer that we can easily enjoy several weeks later.
Fill greased tins with gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins batter and top with sliced banana.
Homemade Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
There’s no better comfort food than crunchy & moist Buckwheat Banana Muffins straight out of the oven. Homemade muffins can be easily stored in the freezer to extend their shelf life and are a great on-the-go breakfast snack.
So what qualities make the best muffins? The perfect muffin must be crunchy on the outside, well leavened so the muffin cap holds its shape and doesn’t shrink when cooled and feature a moist and light interior.
Looking to prepare an easy gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins recipe? Baking is a science so you can’t just lower a muffin recipes fat and sugar content or you will bite into a chewy, hard and unappetizing product.
Buckwheat Banana Muffins Recipe Tips
If you’re looking to prepare muffins on a whim and are missing a few ingredients at home don’t worry!
We alway have bananas in our kitchen as we love to use them in baking and smoothie making. You should only use ripe bananas in this recipe as the starch breaks down into sugars, producing a sweet and soft fruit.
If you have unripe green bananas put them in a paper bag to help speed up the ripening time. We store a bag of brown spotted ripe bananas in the freezer so you can easily thaw and incorporate into this recipe from frozen.
We used store bought oat flour, almond flour and buckwheat flour (Bob’s Red Mill from Portland, Oregon is a popular brand). You can also easily mill your own flours at home by purchasing buckwheat, rolled oats or blanched whole almonds. Simply add them to a blender or food processor and blitz until you’ve achieved a fine powder.
We’ve used semi-sweet chocolate chips in this recipe but you could use milk chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, butterscotch chips or white chocolate chips.
The one tip I give all muffin making beginners is to avoid over-mixing the batter. Light and fluffy muffins are made by reducing the amount of gluten in the batter. If you whip muffin batter with a beater the final product will be as hard as a hockey puck.
For best results, form a well in the dry ingredients and pour your wet ingredients inside. Using a spatula or wooden spoon, gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The finished batter should be fully incorporated, so be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl so you don’t find unmixed flour. The most important rule to muffin making: when mixing, less is more!
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Best Gluten Free Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins Recipe
Gluten Free Buckwheat Banana Muffins
Equipment
- mixing bowl
- measuring spoons
- measuring cups
- muffin tin
- Spatula or Wooden Spoon
- Cooling Rack
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup White Sugar
- 2 Large Eggs
- 2 cups Mashed Ripe Banana
- 1/2 cup Greek Yogurt
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 3/4 tsp Kosher Salt
- 1 cup Buckwheat Flour
- 1/2 cup Oat Flour
- 1/2 cup Almond Flour
- 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 cup Unsalted Butter melted
- 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg
- 1 cup Chocolate Chips
Instructions
- Position a rack in the centre of the oven and preheat to 350 F. Grease a muffin tin with nonstick spray.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs until pale and foamy, around 1 minute. Add the mashed banana, yogurt, vanilla, and salt and whisk until smooth and emulsified.
- Add the buckwheat flour, oat flour, almond flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and baking soda and use a rubber spatula to stir until well-combined and smooth. Fold in the butter and chocolate chips, making sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
- Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tin, filling each cup three quarters full.
- Baking the muffins until puffed and golden, 18-22 minutes. Let muffins cool on a rack before serving.
Nutrition
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