I told myself that when I started this blog, I wanted to stay away from posting recipes. I wanted to avoid becoming just another recipe blog, but after a few requests to share this one, I thought maybe a recipe now and then wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

A week or two ago, I bought a few bananas from the store to make some healthy cookies for my toddler using bananas, applesauce, dried cranberries, and oats. She ate them the first day and wanted nothing to do with them after that. Most of them ended up in the trash. (If I’m being honest, the texture was kind of strange anyway, so I can’t really blame her for not eating them again.)

I ended up with several bananas leftover, though, and no idea what to do with them. Obviously, Boo didn’t like my cookies, so I had to do something else. First, I thought banana bread, but that can get a little messy once you start cutting it into slices. Then, I thought banana muffins, but there was just way too much sugar in most recipes for my liking. Instead, I started digging around for a recipe that used no added sugar in the hopes of finding something I would be comfortable with feeding my child.

I found two recipes that looked good, but neither of them really spoke to me. I ended up creating my own recipe (sort of) based on the two I’d been looking at and they were delicious! I’m quite pleased with how they turned out. Boo seemed happy with them, too, which was the ultimate goal.

So, without further ado, here’s the recipe I managed to come up with for my banana oat muffins.

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 cup quick oats
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp oil or melted butter
• 2 tsp vanilla

Preheat your oven to 350° while you make the batter.

Mash up the bananas well and mix in the rest of the wet ingredients. Make sure those are thoroughly combined. (I also add the salt at this point, but you can also add the salt to the dry ingredients and it would still turn out just the same.)

In a separate bowl, combine all the dry ingredients except for the oats. I always add them last. Once the dry ingredients are well combined, add them to the wet and begin to stir them together. When everything is almost mixed, add the oats and continue to stir until you no longer see any dry flour. At this point, you can also fold in any mix-ins. I used about 1/2 cup of grated carrot. You could also add raisins, nuts, or maybe blueberries if those interested you. To make them even healthier, you could also use whole wheat flour. I just used plain, unbleached white because that’s what I had on hand.

Pour the batter evenly into a muffin pan (this makes 12 muffins total) and bake for 16-18 minutes. Let them cool a few minutes before taking them out of the pan.

I would have taken more photos of the muffins themselves, but I didn’t realize when I made them that I’d be making this post. Next time I’ll take more!

Happy baking!