Healthy Banana and Orange Dark Chocolate Chunk Muffins

♥ Wholegrain and no added fat OR sugar! Good God, what's happening to me?? ♥

I thought these would make a good post Valentine's Day recipe - when you still might be craving sweets but want something a little healthier and not as guilty ;-) You'll recall at the start of the year I said I was going to try and reduce the amount of white sugar/white flour in my baking. It has mostly been going well but I suppose I've always been hesitant to make such things because I imagine this is what people generally think of when they think of vegan baking, that it's all going to be whole grains with no fat or sugar....or flavour. Hence this blog has mostly been about attempting to shatter that image with desserts and baked goods *hopefully* undetectable from their decadent, sugar laden omni friends ;-)

But, we can all do with cutting back on white flour and sugar and these are a delicious option on that front, and while I'm certainly not against healthy fats at all, these just happen to have no added fat as well. Please note I have said added here, of course there is sugar and fat in the chocolate and a tiny bit of sugar in the soy yogurt BUT that's it, and surprisingly these are sweet enough as they are, have a great texture and to prove they pass the sweet test - my boy loves them, and this is a boy who won't touch brown bread and loves sweet things.

You may have noticed these have not appeared on my daily food diary, not that I haven't made and eaten them - I've actually made these 3 times already! They were made before I even started the food diary, sometimes I cook and bake so much I end up with a backlog!! ;-)

Healthy Banana & Orange Dark Chocolate Chunk Muffins - makes 12

225g wholemeal (wholewheat) flour - 1 1/2 cups

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

300 - 350g very ripe bananas, about 2 very large ones

130g plain soy yogurt - 1/2 cup

1 tsp vanilla

80ml freshly squeezed orange juice - 1/3 cup (generally the juice from 1 large navel orange)

zest of 1/2 a navel orange

100g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180C/ 350F. Line or grease a muffin tray, I lightly greased silicon muffin cases and place them in the muffin tin to hold them in place.

Whisk together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Add the banana, yogurt, vanilla, fresh orange juice and zest into a blender and blend until thick and really smooth. Note - if you don't feel like making muffins at this stage this mixture makes a delicious smoothie!

Pour this mixture into the flour mixture and whisk gently until it just comes together, do not over-mix! Fold in the chopped chocolate.

Spoon the batter in to the muffin cases - you can fill them right up here, these don't get much bigger. Pop in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until slightly risen, golden and firm to touch - check with a toothpick too. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to fully cool, I left mine in their silicon cases at this stage. 

While you can certainly have these warm I personally prefer them when they have not only cooled but when the chocolate has hardened again. Lovely with a cup of coffee for breakfast!

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Nutritional Information: based on 1 muffin

Calories: 142

Fat: 3.5g

Sat Fat: 1.8g

Fibre: 3.7g

Carbs: 25.4g

Sugar: 8.4g

Protein: 3.8g

Sodium: 159mg

Gotta love a muffin that has more fibre than fat! In comparison here are the stats for my regular banana chocolate muffins: 

Calories: 207

Fat: 6.6g

Sat Fat: 2g

Fibre: 1.6g

Carbs: 35.2g

Sugar: 17g

Protein: 2.3g

Sodium: 139mg

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