Paleo-friendly Chocolate Chip Muffins – Recipe in progress

This is a recipe in progress! After my success in making delicious paleo muffins including banana berry and pumpkin pecan, I decided to try making chocolate chip muffins!

I’ve made really tasty chocolate chip cookies in the past (I’ll save that recipe for a future post) using Enjoy Life Semi-sweet chocolate mini chips. Only THREE ingredients: evaporated cane juice, chocolate liquor, and cocoa butter! They’re as paleo friendly as chocolate chips can get! Plus the mini chips means that you can use a lot less chocolate. Who wants that really, but being paleo you’re probably trying to keep your sugar intake at a minimum.

These muffins turned out grainier than the others. Haha, a grainier grain-free muffin! I used 2/3 cup almond flour and 1/3 cup coconut flour, which is a different coconut to almond ratio than I’ve used in the past. It was also a tad dry. I also either used too much banana or not enough. There’s a hint of banana flavor of which I ended up wishing there was more or none at all. I think next time chocolate chip banana muffins would be better, especially since the extra banana will help with the dryness. There’s lots of potential here though. I basically followed the banana berry muffin recipe, using chocolate chips instead of berries. I only added some vanilla and used less banana. I won’t post a recipe until I feel like I’ve perfected it though! Leave a comment if you’d still like the recipe or if you have any baking tips!

Even the batter/dough was dryer and doughier than the other muffins I’ve made.

 

Good thing I made half a batch and ended up with only 5 or so muffins! These weren’t bad at all. They were good enough for me to eat all of them in two days, actually… They were better than most gluten-free muffins. Just not up to par with the other muffins I’ve made, so that’s why it’s in progress. 🙂

 

Paleo Pumpkin Pecan Muffins

I’m really getting the hang of this paleo baking thing! I should stop posting my recipes and open a paleo bakery! Seriously. I’m that awesome. I especially enjoy making banana-based paleo breads and muffins! So far I’ve made  banana bread, banana berry muffins, and now these PUMPKIN PECAN MUFFINS!

You might recall from the last muffin post that Holly made me a batch of pumpkin muffins as well. I ended up doubling the recipe and then making several changes to create  a denser, heartier muffin with pecans throughout and more pumpkin spice flavor. The original muffins were sweeter, lighter, and had sliced almonds on top. Here is the original list of ingredients plus all the changes I made so that you can follow either recipe.

Paleo Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients:
1 cup 1 15oz can pure pumpkin puree
1 2 large [over]ripe bananas
1/4 1/2 cup pure almond butter
1/3 1/4 cup raw honey
1 Tbsp pure coconut oil, melted
4 large eggs
zest of 1 lime
1 3/4 2 cups almond flour
[1 cup coconut flour]
1/4 1 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/8 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 3 tsp ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp aluminum-free baking powder
1 1/2 3 tsp baking soda
1/4 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
Sliced almonds, pumpkin seeds, or unsweetened shaved coconut, for topping.
[1 1/2 cup pecans, coarsely chopped]

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans.
2. In a medium bowl, mash the bananas and then mix in the pumpkin puree, raw honey, and eggs. In a large bowl, combine the almond and coconut flours, spices, baking soda, and sea salt. Stir the wet mix into the dry mix.
3. Fold in the pecans.
4. Fill the cupcake pans using an ice cream scoop
5. Bake for 30 minutes. Makes 20 muffins.

These were super delicious and turned out exactly the way I like my muffins! I like my muffins to be dense yet soft and slightly moist… Something I can eat on the go for breakfast or as a snack and be full. I also like my muffins to have only a hint of sweetness without losing the flavor of the star ingredients. Less added sugar of any kind is more paleo, too. I find that I can stop at one muffin because mine aren’t too sweet. Good luck stopping me from eating a whole batch of anything that’s sweet enough to register as dessert in my mouth!

After making the banana berry and pumpkin muffins, I think I can be the queen of paleo muffins. I’m planning on making the following in the future inspired by my favorite muffins, scones, cupcakes, and ice creams from my non-paleo days!
– Cranberry Orange
– Lemon Poppyseed
– Chai Cardamom
– Strawberry Almond
– Honey Lavender
– Green Tea
– Pineapple Coconut
– Chocolate Hazelnut
– Date Nut
– Cinnamon Raisin
Sooo many possibilities!!! I’m thinking one batch of muffins per week, that should keep me busy! I also see breads, cakes, and more cookies in my future.

Maybe I AM serious about this paleo bakery thing… I’ll take online orders, let me know! 😀

Paleo Banana Berry Muffins

I’ve actually been meaning to post about these muffins for several months now! Holly, my tunnel coach’s wife, is an incredible baker and she was so sweet (seriously… she’s not even paleo!) to bake me TWO kinds of PALEO MUFFINS on one of my trips to Utah. On this last trip she made paleo brownies for me! I don’t go to Utah for tunnel time, I go for the baked goods… haha! They were all delicious, I think I almost cried eating them they were so good! I actually ate all dozen or so muffins in one day! And I have the recipes to share with all of you! I would absolutely love to spend a day baking with Holly, hope it happens soon!! Check out her food blog, Phemomenon!

Holly used frozen huckleberries and raw honey. Huckleberries are by far my favorite kind of berry, but all I had on hand were fresh blueberries which worked just as well. I would love to bake these with a whole medley of different kinds of berries. I also didn’t have raw honey, but figured I didn’t need to add any extra sugar because I had super overripe bananas. Instead, I made a cinnamon-nutmeg-coconut palm sugar topping to sprinkle on the tops of my muffins for a little extra sugar and spice. Note: That’s why the tops are brown, I didn’t burn my muffins! My muffins weren’t as moist as the ones I had from Holly, maybe because I omitted the honey or because I used fresh instead of frozen berries? But it doesn’t really matter because they were fantastic!

Paleo Banana Berry Muffins
Ingredients:
1 1/3 cup almond flour
1/3 cup coconut flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp sea salt
1 Tbsp coconut oil
2 large eggs
2 large overripe bananas
2/3 cup berries of your choice, fresh or frozen
2 Tbsp raw honey (optional)

Cinnamon sugar topping (optional):
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp nutmeg
1 Tbsp coconut palm sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mash the bananas, add oil and eggs (and honey if you wish).
3. Combine the dry ingredients, then mix into the bowl.
4. Gently fold in the berries. (My batter was more dough than batter.)
5. Fill cupcake/muffin pan lined with cupcake paper. (They don’t rise much, I use an ice cream scoop to fill the cupcake pans.) Sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar.
6. Bake for 30-35minutes.

Enjoy! 🙂

In case you were wondering, the other muffins from Holly were pumpkin! I’ll have to make those soon, too!