Healthy Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

I felt like a genius last week when it dawned on me to make muffins in my mini muffin tin. I doubt I'm the first person to think of this since it is called a mini muffin pan, after all. But, still. genius. Why didn't I think of this before?

Mini muffins are the perfect size for Tory and Aden's little hands, and perfect portion control for me. Two mini muffins = one regular-sized one, so the idea is you'd only eat half a muffin at snack-time ... or at least that was my train of thought. Plus, a regular muffin is awkwardly big for my kids to eat and half of it usually ends up wasted anyway. Mini muffins, on the other hand, are just the right size.

We had a few over-ripe bananas to use up last week, so I whipped up a batch of these healthy banana chocolate chip muffins.

Banana Chocolate Muffins
(recipe adapted from www.facebook.com/livewellwithcogswell)

Ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour or gluten free cup-for-cup flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 egg whites
1/2 cup honey
2 Tbsp. coconut oil
1/4 cup almond milk
1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
3 ripe bananas
1/4 cup EnjoyLife chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Prepare a muffin tin (or mini muffin tin!) by lightly spritzing it with cooking spray.

3. Mix together dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon) in large bowl.

4. Mix together wet ingredients (egg whites, honey, coconut oil, almond milk, applesauce, bananas) in a large bowl using an electric mixer.

5. Slowly add the mixture of dry ingredients to the mixture of wet ingredients using an electric mixer.

6. Fold in chocolate chips.

7. Pour batter into muffin tin.

8. Bake for 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

I store a few muffins in the refrigerator, and freeze the rest in quart-size Ziploc bags for later. Just pull out a quart-size bag, thaw in the fridge, and they'll be ready to go.

For those following 21 Day Fix, 1 muffin (or 2 mini muffins!) = 1 yellow