Mindful Recipes: The BEST gluten-free, vegan banana muffins

I love baking with my kids. It's such a sensory-rich activity!

Because of this, we often turn baking into a mindfulness practice by observing with our 5 senses:

Touch: We feel the textures and temperatures of ingredients and utensils, mix and measure.

See: We look at the ingredients, the utensils, and other things around the kitchen.

Smell: We smell samples of the ingredients and notice smells during cooking or baking.

Hear: We listen to ALL the sounds of the kitchen.

Taste: We taste the safe ingredients along the way and of course the end result!

I always approach mindfulness gently and don't push too much. Some days my kids are

"all over" noticing and observing, and other days they're just not. And that's ok.

I can't stand blogs where you have to scroll for ages to get to the recipe, so, enjoy this DELICIOUS recipe without all the preamble and let me know how it goes! :)

With warmth and gratitude,

Andrea

Disclosure: I only share resources I highly recommend and would use myself. All opinions expressed here are my own. This post may contain affiliate links on which, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission.

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The BEST Gluten-free, Vegan, Banana Muffins

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons flax meal mixed with 6 tablespoons of almond milk

• 1 + 3/4 cups of gluten-free flour blend (my favorite is the King Arthur brand)

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1 + 1/2 cups mashed overripe bananas (4-5 medium bananas)

• 1/3 cup brown sugar

• 1/2 cup applesauce

• 1/3 cup vegetable oil or coconut oil

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• Optional: chocolate chips, nuts of choice, or other mix-in of choice!

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F and grease or line muffin tins.

2. Mix flax meal and almond milk together, set aside to thicken.

3. Mash bananas in medium-sized bowl. Add all other wet ingredients and brown sugar to the mashed bananas.

4. Mix the remaining dry ingredients together in a separate medium-sized bowl.

5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined. Mix in any optional ingredients being careful to not over-stir.

6. Spoon batter into lined or unlined muffin cups. Divide into 12 large muffins or 24-30 mini-muffins.

7. Bake for 18-22 minutes (or 15-20 minutes for mini-muffins)

8. Let cool and enjoy!