Vegan Banana Nut Muffins

I’ve always found people love you best if you can laugh at your own foolish misfortunes and keep mum about everyone else’s.
— Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer
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Does anyone else still have mixed feelings when it comes to overripe bananas? A slight feeling like damn, I can’t believe I didn’t eat these fast enough combined with nice! Now I can freeze these babies for smoothies or chuck them in some baked good!! because that’s exactly how I feel every time.

Now that our little almost one-year-old (what the heck!!) is eating like a full-grown adult, he can down a full banana to himself! We have gone through being able to buy a bunch or two of bananas for the week to it now only lasting a few days, honestly, we just need our own tree in the yard! Last week, I went overboard and bought 4+ bunches because I reallllyyy didn’t want to go to the grocery store more than I truly needed to, but then the joke was truly on me. Surprisingly, that many bananas doesn’t last long in this house either because we can’t eat them fast enough! Moral of the story, suck it up, go get a new bunch every few days, and deal with the fact that you no longer have a tiny babe anymore! Ugh. The tears!

And so, here we have this recipe. I froze maybe 4-5 bananas for smoothies, and then I took a couple of very ripe ones and made them into these vegan muffins! Bananas are an incredible replacement for eggs, by the way! They are also very lightly sweetened, just some maple + the bananas, oh and some chocolate chips (duh!). You can add in whatever mix-ins you want—we learned that Oliver is not a walnut fan at the moment—and voilà! What’s the best part?! Because these are egg-free, you can feed the batter to your little one! I gave O the tiniest taste and it was so exciting!! He still isn’t eating chocolate, so we had to pick out the chips from the baked muffins (I didn’t think of this beforehand!), and they were a huge hit!!

With a husband who doesn’t love overly sweet things, a one-year-old who doesn’t consume much sugar at all, and me, who is trying to slightly cut back on my sugar obsession, these are PERFECT. Seriously, they check every single, delicious box! Now is the time to say bye to the banana bread you once knew and loved and up-level with these vegan muffins instead!

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ingredients

Flour—10 oz, or 2 C

Oats—7 oz, or 2 C

Baking Powder—2 tsp

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Cinnamon—3 tsp

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Salt—1 ½ tsp

Walnuts, chopped—4 oz, or 1 C

Maple Syrup—5 oz, or ½ C

Oat Milk—6 oz, or ¾ C

Bananas, mashed—2 medium

Vanilla Extract—2 tsp

Coconut Oil or Butter, melted—4 oz, or ½ C, or 8 TBL

Chocolate Chips, mini—7 oz, or 1 C

 

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F.

In a large bowl, combine your dry ingredients: flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and walnuts; mix.

In another bowl, combine your wet ingredients: maple syrup, oat milk, bananas, vanilla extract and your oil of choice.

Add in your wet to the dry and mix until just combined.

Fold in your chocolate chips.

Fill your muffin cups about ¾ of the way full; bake for 15 minutes, rotate, bake another 10-12 minutes. Because these are vegan, and have no eggs, if you want the center softer, then reduce the time!

Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 20 minutes before removing from the pan and eating!

 

Bon Appétit!

Banana Pumpkin Oat Bars

What did you do as a child that created timelessness that made you forget time? There lies the myth to live by.
— Joseph Campbell
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I figure one pumpkin recipe is a must for the start of each fall, so here you go! A [basically] raw dessert that’s packed full of spice, oats, pumpkin and chocolate—how can one go wrong here?! Ya can’t.

I have been seeing this meme a lot lately about how blogs go on and on in the intro about their personal life when all you want is the damn recipe…this hit hard for me because that’s exactly what I do! Anyways…I’ll try to make these intros short and sweet, but I mean, I also love to spill my thoughts here, so you get what you get!

Back to the excitement of these bars! If you haven’t caught on yet, my entire world changed 8 months ago when little O was born! Do I have less time to do things? Sure. Am I always running after him now and making sure he doesn’t eat the dog food? Of course. Do I love every dang second with this guy? Hell yes! Even though my life is quite different now that I have this wild boy, I didn’t want to just STOP baking. I want him to be that kid whose mom makes the best dessert that his friends get excited about coming over for! Duh. But now I need to do things at DOUBLE SPEED. His naps are becoming less and less as he gets older and his ability to just stay in one spot is nonexistent! Which is why I’m about #quickbaking for us parents!

These bars take 5-10 minutes to throw together, or if you have a baby who is trying to eat all of the dirt in your potted plants, it may take you about 20. From there, throw these babies into the oven for about 25 minutes and BAM! you’ve got the gooiest, perfectly sweet lovely little snacks.

Super allergen friendly if that’s something you’re worried about, too! Gluten free, vegan (if you think honey isn’t vegan, sub that for agave or maple syrup!), nut free! They aren’t over-the-top sweet which is my jam these days, they have the PERFECT flavor of pumpkin, of spices, of chocolate—honestly, they blow all other pumpkin desserts and snacks out of the water!

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 ingredients

Oats—12 oz, or 4 C

Baking Powder—1 tsp

Cinnamon—2 tsp (heaping)

Nutmeg—1 tsp

Ginger—1 tsp

Cloves—½ tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Pumpkin purée—8.5 oz, or 1 C

Banana, mashed—1 small, or ½ large, about 3.5 oz

Coconut Oil, melted—2.75 oz, or 1/3 C

Honey—4 oz, or 1/3 C

Chocolate Chips—8 oz, or 1 C

 

process

Preheat your oven to 350˚F

In a large bowl, combine your oats, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger and salt

Mix to combine

Mix in the pumpkin purée and mashed banana

Add the melted oil

Fold in the chocolate chips

Put into an 8” x 8” baking pan

Bake for 22-25 minutes, until the center looks set

Allow to cool either at room temperature or in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes

Cut into squares, I did 16 for this batch

Store in a sealed container in the fridge!

 

Bon Appétit!

Brown Sugar Sprinkle Cookies

Today’s Date: December 21st.

What I thought the date was: November (basically).

There’s some kind of sorcery going on here because the fact that Christmas is in 4 days completely blows my mind. I swear last week was Thanksgiving, 2 days ago was Roberto’s birthday, tomorrow can’t be Thursday…

I can keep going!

Between lots and lots of work, some afternoon naps, and my marathon training—just to keep in shape while I eat so many croissants at work—I have lost track of time completely. It’s wonderful that my work schedule is so crazy compared to almost anyone else’s (4am start time, random weekdays off, etc.) because it keeps me relatively busy and I absolutely love Trader Joe’s runs at 10am on a Monday, no one is there! Then there’s the flip side, I’m rather tired about 90% of the time I’m not at work, so this whole baking outside of work thing gets tough.

The month of December for KBB has consisted of about 10 failed attempts at a cake that I insisted I make work—the recipe seemed flawless! But alas, I decided that a new cookie recipe was needed, one that almost screams “Katie,” and of course it turned out to be magically delicious (cookies are definitely my strong suit!).

So below you have another game changing, swap-out-the-gingerbread-men-for, sprinkle loaded cookie.

All brown sugar? Check!

Oats for “health?” Check!

Sprinkles galore? Check!

Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate? Check check check!

You’re probably thinking Girl, those oats aren’t doing a damn thing! WELL, listen up, this cookie is so soft, like your teeth just sink right in, it’s an incredible thing, so I wanted to add oats because not only do I love the taste of a toasty oat, but a fun texture piece is brought, too.

And then there’s sprinkles, and chocolate…and if you decided to dip the cookies in chocolate and throw on more sprinkles, it’s just a glittery, wonderful winterland of a cookie you have created!

I did all of the above, and I must say it was the best decision this month. As posted on my Instagram, we had a little work outing where we went to Beautiful Briny Sea and make sprinkle blends! My boss, of course, was doing it for the shop for our peppercorn meringues, but the rest of us spent the hour or two making bags and bags of colorful, crazy little blends to bring home!

My Holiday Sprinkle Mix is featured on these cookies—and yes, this activity was even more fun than you can imagine! I’m thinking this is what I want my adult job to be…

ANYWHO! Back on track…got sprinkle distracted…

After a crazy month of work, being a new(ish) dog mom, still adjusting to life in Atlanta and then, surprise!, it’s Christmas, this recipe is exactly what we all need in our lives.

It’s quite simple, yet will bring ease to anyone’s day, especially if you’re as unprepared for this upcoming weekend as I am!

ingredients

Butter, room temperature—12 oz, or 3 sticks

Brown Sugar—16 oz, or 2 ¼ C

Vanilla Extract—1 tsp

Eggs—3

Baking Soda—1 tsp

Salt—1 tsp

Flour—26.25 oz, or 5 ¼ C

Oats—3.75 oz, or ¾ C

Chocolate Chips—14 oz, or 2 C

Sprinkles of choice—3-4 TBL

 

process

In the bowl of your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time.

Once all combined, scrape down the sides of the bowl.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add in the oats.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to your creamed mixture.

Add in your chips and sprinkles.

Either transfer your dough to another bowl or use the mixing bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

When you are ready to bake your cookies, preheat your oven to 350˚ F.

Scoop out tablespoon sized cookies, or I do 1.5 oz, and place on a baking sheet lined with either parchment, a Silpat, or spray with nonstick spray.

Bake for 14-16 minutes, until the outside edges are just slightly browned and the centers are still very light—makes for a nice soft cookie!

Allow to cool and enjoy!

*Note: If you want to dip them in chocolate—over a double boiler, melt about 1 cup of white chocolate until smooth, dip half in the chocolate and cover in sprinkles before the chocolate firms up!*

 

Bon Appétit!