Gooey Banana Bran Muffins

These high fiber muffins are just over 100 calories a pop and each one contains 4g of fibre. The banana and oil makes them especially sweet and gooey, yet they have less than 5g of sugar each and the fats are mostly omega oils and medium-chain fatty acids such as lauric acid which has prized antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal properties.

In the past I've always made this recipe up on the spot and never bothered to write it down. I'm particularly proud of this batch as they're really moist and here's the recipe:


In true testiment to my hap-hazard cooking technique, this photo doesn't actually include all the ingredients, but here's what you'll actually need:

60g all bran style cereal
60g wholemeal flour
100ml milk
generous tbs greek yogurt
1 tbs virgin coconut oil
1 tbs ground flaxseed
1 egg
1 banana
1.5 tsp baking powder
6 chopped dates
1 tbs chopped nuts


Warm up the milk and melt in the coconut oil, then add the cereal and yogurt and mix it all up and let it soak for a few minutes. Stir in the flour, baking powder, nuts and dates. You can use whatever dried fruit you fancy and could even sub the nuts for chocolate chips.


Mash the banana with the egg and add this to the mix. I then added flaxseed, but if you don't have flax just add another tbs of flour or oat bran. Spoon everything into muffin cases, preferably a little neater and spread them out a bit more than I did! Cook at 180C for ~25 minutes and use the tooth-pick test. This made nine muffins but there's only eight in the last photo because um... I ate one ;)


Virgin coconut oil is one of those wonder foods that top models claim to glug litres of every week. Whilst I wouldn't be so misguided as to believe knocking this stuff back will turn me into Miranda Kerr overnight, it does have some real benefits, a few of which are talked about here. It's definitely expensive compared to most other edible oils but I personally think it's worth it. It's the best dietary source of lauric acid and it also tastes amazing, even just spread on toast! I usually grab a few jars when it's on offer at Holland & Barrat but right now it's cheaper online from OneClickPharmacy.