‘Have I ever had muffins before?’ My five year old asked me. I wasn’t sure. There are lots of things that he has never eaten. I don’t buy gluten and dairy free cakes very often, not because I am mean, but because I think that in general, they are sugar-laden, dry and overly priced.

I make treats to take to school and I try different things, but I hadn’t attempted a muffin. Ever up for a challenge, I promised I would try to make some and this is what I came up with.

I found a recipe for ginger and pear muffins and converted it to gluten and dairy free. These worked really well and went down a treat. Then I had some ripe bananas that I didn’t know what to do with, so I adapted the recipe again, using the bananas instead of the pear, omitting the ginger and adding some dairy free chocolate chips.

The great news is, I now have two muffin recipes instead of just one. These are so easy to make and this recipe makes twelve, so it will keep you going for a few days.

200g gluten free plain flour blend (I used my own and it was made up of 75g sorghum flour, 25g brown rice flour, 50g quinoa flour and 50g tapioca flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
100g unrefined brown sugar
150g dairy free yoghurt
125ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tablespoon of rice syrup
2 small (or one medium) ripe bananas
50g dairy free chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 200°c.

Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl.

In a separate bowl mash the bananas and then add the other wet ingredients. Thoroughly beat together.

Add this to the dry ingredients and then beat again for a couple of minutes (the longer, the beating time, the better).

Fold the chocolate chips in to the mix, then divide in to 12 muffin cases.

Bake for 20 minutes.

If you want to make the pear and ginger version, swap the bananas for a medium sized pear, add 1 teaspoon of dried ginger and omit the chocolate chips. Add the ginger to the dry ingredient and fold in the pear at the end.