Recipe: Sugar-free Banana Muffins

The problem I have with sugar-free recipes, of the sort you find in recipe books extolling the virtues of giving up sugar, is that they quite often simply replace the caster sugar with some variety of syrup, or fill it full of dates. I believe the reasoning goes something along the lines of “If it doesn’t have ‘sugar’ in the name, then it’s not sugar and you can eat lots and lots of it”.

I was therefore agreeably surprised to discover the following sugar-free recipe, with only a handful or two of dried fruits besides the bananas, on BBC Good Foods. I only amended it a little, to include chocolate chips, and switched the sultanas for cranberries.

You will need:

3-4 Ripe Bananas, mashed

50g butter, melted

1 egg

Vanilla essence

1 tbsp milk

125g self-raising flour

Half tsp baking powder

Ground cinnamon

75g sultanas [cranberries]

Opt.: chocolate chips. To be sugar-free, I used 100% cacao chips

Mix together the bananas, butter, egg, vanilla and milk in one bowl, and the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, dried fruits and chips (if using) in another. Pour the banana mix into the flour bowl and mix thoroughly.

Spoon into your chosen tin/muffin cases.

If you’re making a loaf, it’ll need 30-40 minutes; if muffins, 20-30 minutes at 180C/160C fan oven/Gas Mark 4. Or until a skewer comes out clean.