love muffins: vegan banana pecan oat muffins

This isn’t pink or red or heart shaped recipe. Though, if you’re feeling sentimental and have marbles handy, you can make heart-shaped muffins like so. But this recipe is a good one to make for a Valentine’s Day breakfast. A moist and light banana muffin still slightly warm from the oven? Now that’s some pretty good love right there.

On the weekend, Cornelius was about to throw these growing-ever-more-fragrant spotty bananas into the freezer, when I told him to leave them out. Tomorrow, I said, I’ll make muffins. And because I don’t take baking proclamations lightly, the next morning I whipped up a batch to go with our dark, hot coffees. There’s no big surprises with the recipe or the flavour. Whole oats, all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour are all partners in adding bulk. I went with a half cup of brown sugar and loved the results – not too sweet, just right. But it’s the pecans that help to make these muffins a little bit nicer. Somehow, substituting walnuts wouldn’t be quite so special. And it goes without saying that these are great if you’ve got egg allergies, are vegan or just ran out of eggs. The texture is lovely and light, not dry. Perfect morning muffins.

So whip up a batch and say I love you.

elsewhere: Want a fun cookie that tastes amazing too? Bake up a batch of these colourful sugar saucers over at Poppytalk. Seriously, if I owned a bakery, these would become my signature cookie. Delicious!

vegan banana pecan oat muffins
1/2 c whole wheat flour
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c whole oats
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t kosher salt
1/4 t freshly ground nutmeg
pinch of cinnamon
1/2 c brown sugar* (not packed)
1/2 c mild-flavoured oil (or vegan butter, melted)
3 ripe, brown bananas, mashed
1/4 c pecans, roughly chopped

Grease or line a 12-cup muffin tray. Preheat oven to 375F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, oats, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the sugar and oil together until blended. Stir in the mashed bananas and then slowly combine the flour/oat mixture along with the pecans, making sure not to overmix the batter.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups and bake for 15-20 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Makes 12 muffins.

* If you can’t find vegan brown sugar, make your own by mixing 1/2 c vegan white sugar with 1 T molasses

  Print This Recipe