Vegan Weekend: Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

This weekend was one of those summer weekends. The kind where you do nothing all day but are tired because of it. The kind where you get sleepy eyes from too much sun, and need an afternoon nap after a midday happy hour. I like those kind of weekends.

This weekend was also an experiment in vegan-ism…or at least sort of. We went to a friend’s cabin with a 50% vegan-friend population, so I wanted to make some things that would be enjoyed by all, including the little 1.5-year-old who entertained us the whole time. My first order of business was to get my sweets covered…I decided to fashion some kind of muffin that was healthy enough to be breakfast, but yummy enough that the non-vegans would also partake.

I figured we needed to come in with a plan for food. Partially because of the group’s varying food preferences, but mostly because I didn’t want anything silly like cooking to interfere with our days of doing nothing. This girl’s got priorities.

Whole Wheat Vegan Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Recipe adapted from Tasty Kitchen, with some vegan how-to-help from Oh She Glows.

• 1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 teaspoon wheat germ
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 2/3 cups vanilla soy milk
• 1 tablespoon ground flax mixed with 3 tablespoons of warm water (replaces one egg)
• 1/4 cups water
• 1/3 cup natural creamy peanut butter
• 1/2 cup organic sugar (evaporated cane juice)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 teaspoons organic sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375.

Whisk together the flax and warm water in a small bowl, and then let it sit for 5-10 minutes while you get the other stuff together.

In a large bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients (including 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon), whisking together to mix well. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix together the bananas, soy milk, water, peanut butter, 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla. Then grab your flax/water mixture, give it another good whisk, and pour it into the other wet ingredients and stir.

Slowly add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and gently mix until just combined. Pour the batter into greased muffin cups, filling it just a bit higher than 3/4 full.

Stir together the remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of each muffin.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, until they pass the toothpick test.

No butter, no oil, no eggs…I have no idea why it works, but trust me…it really, really does. These muffins even rose more, and were fluffier, than many non-vegan muffin recipes I’ve made. So put that in your judgmental pipe and smoke it.

These muffins are moist, sweet, and have just the right balance of banana and peanut butter. That doesn’t mean you can’t cut one in half and slather on MORE peanut butter if you want, but that would just be crazy, wouldn’t it? I can’t even imagine who would ever do that…

These guys were devoured by vegans, non-vegans, adults, and even a 1.5-year-old over the course of the cabin weekend. They were the perfect thing for us to grab on our way out to do something really important, like sit on the beach and have a beer. Or you know, something else (but probably nothing else).