A warm gluten free muffin fresh from the oven on a cool autumn morning, doesn’t that sound lovely? If you answered yes, you need a brown sugar pumpkin banana muffin!
My family loves muffins, does yours? Whenever I have muffins baking, it draws my son to the kitchen and I get asked, when will those muffins be done? Can I taste the muffins? What type of muffins are you making? To say he is a muffin fan would be an understatement.
Hidden Veggies in Pumpkin Banana Muffins
When my son was little he was not the best vegetable eater despite my best efforts, so eventually I started to ‘hide’ veggies in baked goods like muffins. I am not beyond hiding veggies especially when it comes to picky eaters. In my defense, I always call them out in the recipe though! PUMPKIN banana muffins. CUCUMBER cinnamon muffins. There is nothing wrong in my opinion when you need to put some vegetables in a beloved food – like a bakery fresh muffin!
Gluten Free Muffins – Do They Taste Good?
It’s funny, for some reason my kids think gluten free means healthy. I am not sure what gave them that impression. And although these muffins are healthy-ish, they do have brown sugar, so sugar free muffins they are not. They are oil free muffins though! Sometimes we just need a little sugar in our lives. So, no children, these are not the healthiest food in the world but they are better than other processed snacks.
Now that we got that out of the way…do gluten free muffins taste good? i.e. if I am not gluten free, would I like them? When I was testing these pumpkin banana muffins, my daughter had a friend over who really wanted to be my official taste tester. So after reminding her a few times, these muffins are JUST A TEST. If you don’t like them, that is okay, it just means I need to head back to the proverbial drawing boards. BUT she LOVED THEM. Which is awesome, because that saved me time as well from baking another batch in the test kitchen.
Add in Some Spice to These Muffins, if You Like
Some fun additions to these gluten free pumpkin banana muffins would be a generous pinch of cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice! Dried cranberries and walnuts would also be a nice touch. If adding nuts or dried fruit, fold them gently into the mixture before putting them in the muffins cups.
Add your warm cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice when you are adding your gluten free flour mixture.
More Notes About These Gluten Free Muffins
You could use all purpose flour if you are not gluten free. I used gluten free flour because I avoid gluten due to a lectin sensitivity, but if you don’t need gluten free, you don’t have to buy the expensive gluten free flour!
This recipes makes 10 normal sized muffins – if you make them smaller they would make 12. If you make them bigger they would make about 6 – 8 muffins.
Let’s make some pumpkin banana muffins! If you make these, tag @badtothebowl on social media we would love to know!
Brown Sugar Pumpkin Banana Muffins (Gluten Free + Vegan)
Ingredients
Make Flax Egg
- 2.5 Tblsp of ground flax
- 1 Tblsp Water
Gluten Free Muffins
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 banana mashed
- 1/2 cup pumpkin purée
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup gluten free all purpose flour*
- 3/4 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Optional: cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, dried cranberries, chopped walnuts.
Instructions
- In small bowl, combine flax egg ingredients and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a 12 muffin pan with paper liners (or spray well with cooking spray).
- In another small bowl, whisk together applesauce, brown sugar, banana, pumpkin and vanilla extract. Fold in flax egg.
- Sift together your gluten free flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
- Stir gently into your wet ingredients and mix until combined (but don’t over mix)
- Fill prepared muffin pan. (mixture makes about 10 muffins)
- Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
- Store in fridge.
