These healthier double chocolate banana muffins are loaded with extra mashed bananas, dark chocolate chips and whole wheat for a whole bunch of healthy goodness. A short ingredient list and easy instructions make them quick and simple to assemble.
Sneak them into a lunch box as a surprise or make them for a special breakfast or weekend brunch. Thanks to all the banana in them they are incredibly moist and keep well for a few days.
If you want to make them ahead, they can easily go into the freezer to save them for later.
I love, love, LOVE chocolate and banana together.
You don’t want to know how many times in my life I’ve made this One Bowl Chocolate Banana Bread.
I also love baking up healthier muffins (uhm, Healthy Gingerbread Muffins or Healthy Blueberry Lemon Muffins, anyone?)
So it only seems fair to combine my love for chocolcate, banana and muffins into one glorious treat, right?!
See, I knew you wouldn’t object.
These are SO easy to make, seriously.
I bake them all the time with my toddler, and she loves helping out. It’s one of those easy recipes that are very forgiving, and you can actually make together with little kids.
Here are our top tips to keep these chocolate banana muffins simple and successful:
Do not overmix
The most important part of any muffin recipe is to not overmix the wet and dry ingredients.
If you overmix them, the gluten in the flour develops into long strands, which gives baked goods a chewy texture. That’s great in pizza dough, but not so great in muffins!
So if you want a nicely domed, light muffin – mix the wet and dry ingredients until you JUST can’t make out dry flour patches anymore.
Use really ripe bananas.
It’s OK if they’re not all the way black (bananas NEVER last that long in our house), but don’t use ones that are just ripe/still green, because they won’t sweeten the muffins enough.
Let the muffins cool on a rack
Leave them in the pan for the first 5 minutes after baking, so they can cool down a bit and firm up before you touch them.
But then get them out of the pan and onto a cooling rack. Why? Because the heat will collect at the bottom of the muffin pan cavities, and make the muffins “sweat”.
That moisture will give your muffins the elusive “soggy bottom” – something you definitely want to avoid!
A note about storage
The muffins keep well for a few of days if you store them in an airtight container. They will get dry over time, but thanks to initially being very moist they are still very delicious even after three or four days.
You can easily freeze them for up to three months, too. I would advice to freeze them in freezer containers, making sure they don’t touch so you can just grab however many you need to defrost at a time.
You can check out a few of my recommendations for storage containers etc in this post: Freezer Friendly Fall Breakfast Ideas.
Here’s the printable recipe for these healthier double chocolate banana muffins:
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 pinch salt
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1 cup mashed bananas, about 3 medium
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 ounces dark chocolate chunks, or chips
Instructions
- Line a 12 cavity muffin tin with muffin liners (or spray with non stick spray). Preheat the oven to 360°F.
- Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
- In a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the oil, mashed bananas, sugar, egg, milk and vanilla extract. Pour these wet ingredients into the bowl with the flour mix and fold together with a spatula until just combined. A few lumps are OKI!
- Fold in the chocolate chips. Evenly distribute the batter between the prepared muffin cups. (There are about 3 tablespoons of batter per muffin.)
- Bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove onto a cooling rack to cool completely.