Banana and Peanut Butter Breakfast Muffins (no refined sugar)

This month I am going to be doing something a bit different on this blog.

I am trying to avoid refined sugar, junk food and booze until I go on holiday on 17 August.

This is because I want to wear crop tops on holiday. And I'm also training for a half marathon and would like to drag as little weight as possible around the 13 mile course and don't want to lose any training days to hangovers.

So I have discarded the usual basics of baking - white flour, caster sugar, butter and I am getting creative.

One of the first things I wanted to do was make a healthy breakfast option. I never seem to have much time in the morning, so I usually end up smearing half a jar of peanut butter on toast and shoving it into my face before running out the door.

So I decided to make muffins - something I could take with me to work. I included bananas for sweetness, some peanut butter for protein, wholemeal flour for fibre, some oats for more fibre, seeds for essential fats and some more peanut butter for good measure.

Next time I make these I will get some deeper muffin cases and make 6-8 bigger muffins, so they are big enough to just have one for breakfast. I also might try separating the eggs and whipping the whites to see if I can get them to rise a bit more.

You will need:
3 bananas
100g smooth peanut butter
125g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 tbsp milk
1 tbsp jumbo oats
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
a muffin tray and 6-8 deep foil muffin cases

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Mash the bananas in a bowl and add 50g of the peanut butter, the egg, the milk, the vanilla and whisk together.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder and cinnamon.

3. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Put a teaspoon of peanut butter in the bottom of each muffin case.

4. Divide the rest of the mixture between the muffin cases.

5. Sprinkle the oats and pumpkin seeds over the muffins and bake for 15-20 minutes until risen and cooked through.

6. Eat while still warm or microwave for 10 seconds before eating.

Nutritious, delicious, convenient and completely free of refined sugar.

Happy (and healthy) baking!

Ellie
xxx