These mini banana chocolate chip bran muffins are the perfect breakfast or morning snack food. They’re full of good-for-you ingredients and still taste delicious!

Hi all. It’s Friday again. I was planning to have a fun campfire recipe to share with you all today, but I have a sick toddler who thwarted my campfire plans. Look forward to it soon though, because it’s a good one!

The good news though, is that now I get to share these amazing muffins with you today. It’s no secret that we love a good muffin around here. I’ve shared our favorite blueberry muffins before, and we regularly make these applesauce oat muffins, too. We keep a supply of homemade muffins in the freezer that we can pull out and thaw for a snack (with yogurt is our favorite combination) several times a week.

Today’s muffins are a great hearty and healthy addition to your snack rotation. They are based on a recipe from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe that I’ve been making for awhile, but I’ve been tweaking it lately, adding in some of my favorite healthy-factor-boosting ingredients, and making them kid-sized (because everything is more fun to eat when it’s little).

Little Man LOVES these muffins. In fact, he’s started calling them “his” muffins and has declared that he only wants to make this recipe from now on. I’m pretty sure that won’t last (he’s a sucker for blueberries), but I’m glad they passed the kid-taste-test.

Hopefully, they’ll pass your kids’ taste test, too.

Enjoy!

Banana Chocolate Chip Bran Muffins

Note: You can make these as mini muffins or regular-sized. Yield is 24 regular-sized muffins or 48 mini muffins. Also, if you’re going to store these for multiple days, I recommend freezing them and then warming them back up in the microwave. If they sit out on the counter for more than a day or two, they start to dry out a bit. Last thing: I never buy buttermilk. I make my own by mixing 1 cup milk with 1 teaspoon of white vinegar and letting it sit for about 5 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons coconut oil, softened
• 1/3 cup applesauce
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
• 1/2 cup buttermilk (*see note above)
• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup ground flax seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 cups bran flakes
• 2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the coconut oil, applesauce and sugar.
2. Add the eggs, bananas and buttermilk and mix well.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, salt, bran flakes and chocolate chips. Mix just until evenly moistened. The batter will be lumpy. Don’t over-mix it.
4. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake regular muffins for 16-18 minutes or mini muffins for 10-12 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. You can store the muffins in an airtight container for 1-3 days, or (my preference) you can freeze them for up to a month.

Source: Adapted from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe. I used coconut oil instead of butter, added flax seed, cut down on the chocolate chips, and miniaturized the muffins (adjusting cooking time accordingly).I regularly link up here.