Chocolate Banana Muffins

I have made some additional tweaks to this recipe, so I wanted to email it out in its newer form. I hope you enjoy!

Baking without eggs? I feel like I'm back to square one. However, I have read that if Sabrina avoids eggs for a couple of years, she might outgrow her egg allergy and be able to eat them again without a reaction. In the mean time, I still want her to be able to eat muffins and cake, so I've been experimenting with egg-free muffin recipes. Yesterday's attempt was quite encouraging. I tried a recipe for chocolate banana muffins, and they turned out just like muffins are supposed to. Michael even said they were very tasty, and he's not usually all that excited about chocolate.

I have adapted my muffin recipe from the following recipe for chocolate banana muffins. If you can eat eggs and wheat, just use the original recipe.

Chocolate Banana Muffins
makes 6 or 7 muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp. Bob's Red Mill ground flax seed meal
• 3 Tbsp. hot water
  
• 1 cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten-free flour
• 3 Tbsp. Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa
• 2/3 tsp. baking soda (or 1/2 tsp. and 1/8 tsp. if you don't have a 1/3 tsp. measuring spoon.)
  
• 1/4 tsp. sea salt
• 1/3 cup granulated white sugar
• 1 cup mashed ripe banana. This is about 2 medium to large sized bananas.
• 2 1/2 Tbsp. canola oil
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Use Trader Joe's alcohol-free vanilla extract or another vanilla extract that does not have corn syrup and is preferably alcohol-free, since the alcohol could be derived from corn. Recently I have been using Rodelle Vanilla Flavor alcohol free all natural extract, which I found at Stop and Shop.

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and grease 6 or 7 muffin tin cups using canola oil or Spectrum Organic shortening. Heat 3 tablespoonfuls of water in a cup or mug and then stir in the ground flax seed meal. Set the cup aside. In a medium-size bowl mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and sea salt.

Mash the bananas on a plate and then put them in a small bowl. Add to the small bowl the sugar, canola oil, vanilla, and flax seed mixture. Stir thoroughly to combine. Make a hole in the middle of the flour mixture in the medium bowl and pour the liquid mixture from the small bowl into the medium one. Stir just until you see no traces of dry flour left.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin cups and bake for 17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out mostly clean. Remove the muffins from the tin and let them cool on a wire rack.