Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins
I put peanut butter, banana, and honey in the blender, and my daughter asked what kind of smoothie I was making. None, I said. I’m making muffins. What??? This goes down as the easiest and fastest batter I’ve ever made. Ready in about 17 seconds with the flip of a switch. I’m a big fan of whisk-together batters, and nearly every blondie, brownie, bar, quick bread, muffin, and cake on my site is made with a whisk. I reserve my stand mixer for cookie dough, bread dough, and frosting. But this peanut butter muffin batter is even easier than using a whisk. Just combine one egg, banana, peanut butter, honey, vanilla, and baking soda in a blender and blend, before stirring in chocolate chips. Did you notice what’s missing in the ingredients list? Flour. Gluten. The muffins are gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, dairy-free, oil-free, refined sugar-free, and they clock in at under 100 calories each based on SparkPeople’s calculator.
If you’re willing to give up the chocolate chips, you can shave off 35% of the calories. But I like chocolate.
I have a few recipes for flourless peanut butter cookies, as well as other peanut butter cookies that are gluten-free or that don’t use white sugar, brown sugar, butter, salt, or oil. But I had never tried to pull of a flourless muffin until now, and I’m sold because these are some of the softest, moistest, and best peanut butter muffins I’ve ever had. For all the health claims that can be made about the muffins, the best part is that they taste every bit as good as muffins made with flour, gluten, and lots of added sugar. Because there’s no flour, I was a bit worried that these blender muffins would turn out like peanut butter fudge, since there was no flour to fluff them up and provide the normal amount of cakiness found in a muffin, but I was wrong. The egg, pinch of baking soda, and banana did the trick to give them the springiness and bounciness you want in a muffin. When I was stacking them, the muffins on the bottom were like little trampolines, ready to absorb the weight and bounced back. Warm and fresh from the oven, these little guys were incredibly good. Soft and a little squishy, supremely moist, and tons of bold peanut butter flavor, complemented by melty chocolate chips. You may want to just double the recipe and make a double batch from the get go. Muffins freeze beautifully and you can keep a stash in the freezer to toss into lunches or for an easy snack when your peanut butter and chocolate cravings hit. At under 100 calories, have a few.
Peanut Butter Muffins Ingredients
For these peanut butter chocolate chip muffins, you’ll need:
Banana Egg Creamy peanut butter Honey Vanilla extract Baking soda Salt Mini chocolate chips
Bananas are versatile workhorses in baking, and the banana here helps to add lightness, fluffiness, and natural sweetness since there’s only 3 tablespoons honey used to sweeten the entire recipe. And for those who don’t like bananas, you’re very safe here and you can hardly taste it. My daughter did detect the banana, but I have a feeling that’s because she had a hawkeye on the ingredients as they went into the blender.
How to Make Peanut Butter Muffins in a Blender
To make this gluten-free mini muffin recipe, simply add everything but the chocolate chips into the blender and blend until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand, and then spoon the batter into greased mini muffin tins. I baked the muffins in my mini muffin pans and they only took 8 1/2 minutes to bake. I made 17 mini muffins, and filled the cavities to a solid 3/4 full. Don’t be surprised if they’re nicely domed in the oven, but fall a bit as they cool. Let these peanut butter muffins cool for about 10 minutes before trying to take them from the muffin tins. These mini muffins are best fresh, but will keep for up to 5 days at room temperature.
Can I Make These as Regular-Sized Muffins?
I haven’t tested the recipe as full size muffins. You’ll probably yield about 8 or 9 and I’d start watching the clock closely at about 13 minutes and go from there, but I haven’t tried, and am purely guessing. After all, part of the appeal of this recipe is the mini size. Mini food is just so pop-able.
Can I Use an Egg Substitute in This Recipe?
I haven’t tried that myself, so I can’t say for sure if you can replace the egg with anything. If you try an egg replacement and it works, please leave me a comment down below so I can try it out myself!
Is There a Banana Substitute I Can Use?
I’m not sure! I’ve only ever made these peanut butter muffins as listed in the recipe card below, so I don’t know if you can substitute the banana for anything. You really can’t taste it though!
Can I Use Another Type of Nut Butter?
Possibly, yes. I personally recommend using peanut butter from a brand like Jif or Skippy. But if you have a peanut allergy, you may be able to use sun butter or almond butter. Just note that both are much thinner and runnier than peanut butter, and I don’t know if either will work.
Can I Use Muffin Liners Instead of Greasing the Pan?
I personally skip muffin liners (I’m too lazy to line all those mini muffin tins!), but I don’t see why you couldn’t use them for this recipe.
Can I Freeze Muffins?
Yes, these gluten-free peanut butter muffins freeze like a dream. To freeze these, first let them come to room temperature, then seal them inside a freezer bag. When you’re ready to enjoy them, either reheat them in the oven (set to a very low temperature), or simply place on your counter to thaw.
Tips for the Best Peanut Butter Muffins
I used store-bought peanut butter and always recommend baking with something like Jif or Skippy because natural and homemade peanut butter tends to be thinner, runnier, and can separate. If you try natural PB, I don’t know what the results will be. I used mini chocolate chips because the size is perfectly proportionate for the mini muffins. Make sure to stir in the chips by hand at the end, rather than add them with other ingredients. You don’t want pulverized chips. One trick to make your muffins really shine is to sprinkle a few extra chips on the top of each muffin before baking for a nice visual pop.
More Easy Gluten-Free Recipes:
Flourless Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Mini Blender Muffins — No refined sugar, flour, or oil and only 75 calories! They taste amazing! Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes!
Mini Flourless Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Blender Muffins – The EASIEST pumpkin muffins ever!! Everything is mixed together in your blender!
Flourless Chocolate Cake – A classy, elegant cake that’s ultra rich, fudgy, and tastes better than what you’d get in a fancy restaurant and it’s so EASY!!
Flourless Blueberry Banana Muffins — No flour or oats, no butter, and no added white or brown sugar yet they’re incredibly moist, super soft, perfectly sweet, and are bursting with blueberries.
Best Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies — These cookies are full of bold, robust peanut butter flavor, chewy around the edges, and perfectly soft and tender in the middle.
Flourless Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Blender Cake — The cake is soft, extremely moist, dense but not heavy, and has bold peanut butter flavor that’s complemented by chocolate.
Flourless Peanut Butter and Chocolate Brownies — These are the fudgiest brownies I’ve ever made, and that’s what happens when there’s no flour.
