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These Banana Peanut Butter Streusel Muffins are fluffy, generous and richly flavoured. What’s more they are vegan and gluten-free to boot.
I have found myself getting more and more interested in vegan baking. It began at the farmer’s market when the usual vegan cake stall took a few weeks absence and I was inundated with requests for vegan cakes in the interim. Being a free-from baker naturally lends itself to such enquires and I welcome them. I love a project and removing eggs and butter from the equation certainly challenges an enthusiastic baker.
I myself am not vegan, although these days I do try to avoid dairy. From childhood I have always had a problem with milk, claiming drinking it made my ‘ears pop.’ I don’t know what that means now, in fact my nursery teacher didn’t know at the time either and I have horrible memories of being forced to zap the stuff up through a straw from little milk bottles, sitting in a torturous circle with the other children. My poor childhood trauma. It seems since having Cole though (two years ago this week!) my dairy intolerance has increased. So vegan cakes and dairy-free cakes have started to hold more interest for me.
Experimenting with non-dairy, no egg cakes has been fraught with failure. I mastered a Chocolate Almond Butter Fudge Cake for the stall quite quickly, which I’ll be sharing the recipe of soon, but some vegan customers at the stall always seemed disappointed when a chocolate cake was the only vegan option.
It seems bananas are the next step in vegan baking, combined with the peanut butter here they bind the cake together well without the need for an egg substitute like a chia or flax egg. In fact the crumb is so fluffy that the sponge is a bit of a revelation. There is a fair amount of leavening used with the baking powder and bicarbonate of soda but that doesn’t bother me and the effects can’t be tasted.
I do love a muffin with a hearty streusel so here I have gone haywire with chopped banana chips and salty peanuts. I always make the streusel topping for the muffin first and then place the topping in the freezer to firm. This helps the streusel from sinking into the muffin when it goes into the oven and retain a crunch. If you leave the streusel in the freezer for too long don’t worry at all, just chop roughly with a knife or pulse quickly in the food processor to loosen the crumbs.
The Banana Peanut Butter Streusel Muffin is also gluten-free. I chose sorghum flour, which is demanding in its presence but its earthy tones pair well with the bananas and peanut butter so it doesn’t overpower the cake but blends nicely. It’s included in my current favourite combo of gluten-free flours, sweet rice flour, millet flour, potato starch and tapioca starch which together create a lovely texture for the muffin and are a good base for the sorghum flour to shine.
Creating cakes which are gluten-free, vegan but can also pass muster with friends, family and customers who can eat anything is actually brilliant fun. So far I have been rewarded with some truly outstanding cakes and although the blog itself isn’t going to turn vegan anytime soon, I will definitely be including more vegan recipes in my repertoire.
Banana Peanut Butter Muffins {vegan, gluten-free}
Ingredients
- 140 g sweet rice flour
- 100 g sorghum flour
- 80 g millet flour
- 40 g potato starch
- 40 g tapioca flour
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 240 ml unsweetened almond milk
- 200 ml olive oil
- 2-3 bananas - about 200g
- 125 g peanut butter
- 120 g caster sugar
- 120 g soft light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
For the streusel
- 45 g sweet rice flour
- 30 g sorghum flour
- 25 g millet flour
- 25 g caster sugar
- 25 g soft light brown sugar
- 40 g dried banana chips - roughly chopped
- 40 g salted peanuts - roughly chopped
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 90 g coconut butter*
Instructions
- Pre-heat the oven to 160°C and line a muffin tin with muffin cases.
- First prepare the streusel by whisking the flours, sugars, banana chips, peanuts and cinnamon together. Rub the coconut butter into the dry ingredients until you have achieved a rough crumb.
- Spread the streusel out onto a lined baking tray and place in the freezer whilst you prepare the rest of the muffins.
- In a large bowl whisk together the flours, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt and set aside for a moment.
- Beat together the almond milk, olive oil, mashed bananas, peanut butter, sugars and vanilla extract.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.
- Divide the batter evenly between the cupcake cases then sprinkle over the streusel topping.
- Bake for 25 -30 minutes, or until an inserted cocktail stick comes out clean.
- Remove the muffins from the muffin tin straightaway and cool on a wire rack.
Ooh this looks nice. I don't have millet or sorghum flour though, do you think I could sub something else (rice? Oat? Gram flour?). I have tapioca, sweet rice and potato flour though.
Hi Lucy, yes you can absolutely sub in any of those options. My choice would be oat flour.
There are too many types of Millet in India! Which Miller flour?
We just have standard millet flour in the UK so no idea how that would translate in India. However, I can tell you that the brand I use is Bob's Red Mill.