Gluten-Free Banana Bread Muffins

Banana bread is the best possible use for bananas nobody got around to eating, and muffins are the best possible shape for banana bread. They bake in twenty minutes instead of an hour, they freeze well, and everybody gets an edge piece. These come together in one bowl with a whisk, because Pamela's Pancake & Baking Mix already has the leavening and salt in it, which takes most of the work out. The one thing that decides whether they taste like banana bread or like a plain muffin is how ripe the bananas are. Go darker than feels reasonable. So good, no one will guess they are gluten-free, the way Pamela's has done it since 1988.

Why You'll Love These Muffins

• One bowl, one whisk, no mixer.
• Twenty minutes in the oven instead of an hour for a loaf.
• Uses up three sad bananas, which is the entire reason anyone makes banana bread.
• They freeze beautifully, so a batch covers a week of breakfasts.
• The mix does the measuring. No baking powder, no baking soda, no guessing.

How Long to Bake Banana Bread Muffins

Bake banana bread muffins at 350 degrees F for 18 to 20 minutes. They are done when the tops spring back to a light touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

That timing is for a standard 12-cup muffin pan with the cups filled about three-quarters full. Two adjustments:

Mini muffins: 10 to 12 minutes at the same temperature.

Jumbo muffins: 22 to 26 minutes, and start checking at 22.

Check at 18 minutes, not 20. Banana muffins carry a lot of moisture, and the gap between perfectly moist and dry is about two minutes. The spring-back test is more reliable than the toothpick here, because a bit of mashed banana can read as wet batter on a toothpick when the muffin is actually done.

Bake them in the center of the oven. Too high and the tops brown before the centers set.

How Many Bananas You Need, and How Ripe

You need 1 cup of mashed banana, which is about 3 medium bananas. Two large ones will get you there if they are big. Any less and the banana flavor disappears into the muffin.

Ripeness matters more than quantity. The bananas should be heavily speckled or mostly black, soft enough to mash with a fork without effort, and sweet-smelling. A yellow banana with a few brown freckles is not ripe enough. It adds moisture but almost no flavor, and it is the single most common reason homemade banana muffins taste like nothing.

If your bananas are not ready, bake them whole and unpeeled at 300 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes until the skins are black. Cool, then peel and mash. It is not identical to natural ripening but it is far better than using underripe fruit.

Frozen bananas work well. Thaw completely and use the liquid that separates out, since that is banana flavor. Freezing actually improves them for baking, because the cell walls break down and the fruit mashes smoother.

The Mix That Makes These Work

Pamela's Pancake & Baking Mix is a complete mix, which is why this recipe has eight ingredients instead of twelve. The leavening and salt are already in it, so there is no baking powder, no baking soda, and no measuring three different things to make a muffin rise.

It also contains almond meal and cultured buttermilk, which is why these taste richer than most gluten-free muffins. The buttermilk brings a slight tang that suits banana, and the almond meal adds fat that keeps the crumb tender rather than crumbly.

The mix these are built on Pamela's Gluten-Free Pancake & Baking Mix- a complete baking mix with the leavening and salt included. Works for pancakes, waffles, muffins, quick breads, and biscuits. GFCO-certified.

Measure by weight if you can. One and three-quarter cups is about 280 grams. Scooping the cup through the bag compacts the mix and can add 20 to 30 grams, which is enough to make the muffins dense. One and three-quarter cups is about 280 grams. Scooping the cup through the bag compacts the mix and can add 20 to 30 grams, which is enough to make the muffins dense.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Muffins

Fold 3/4 cup of chocolate chips into the batter at the very end, after everything else is combined. That is the whole change.

Two things worth doing. Toss the chips with a tablespoon of the dry mix first, which keeps them from sinking to the bottoms. And press a few onto the tops before baking, so they stay visible instead of disappearing into the crumb.

Chocolate and banana do not need the nuts, so leave those out unless you want all three.

Check your chips: most contain milk and soy lecithin.

Make Them as a Loaf Instead

The same batter works as a loaf. Pour into a greased 8x4 or 9x5 pan and bake at 350 degrees F for about 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean.

The full loaf version, with its own timing notes, is here: Gluten-Free Banana Bread with Pancake & Baking Mix.

A loaf is not just a bigger muffin. It needs three times the bake time, the top will crack down the middle, which is correct and not a flaw, and it slices better after cooling completely. Muffins can be eaten warm. A loaf cannot, or it crumbles.

What These Muffins Contain

These muffins contain dairy, egg, and tree nuts.

Tree nuts come from two places. Pamela's Pancake & Baking Mix contains almond meal, so these cannot be made nut-free even if you leave the chopped nuts out. That is worth knowing before you bake for a group.

Dairy comes from the cultured buttermilk in the mix and from the butter. Eggs are structural, so there is no straightforward substitution and these are not egg-free or vegan.

If you need dairy-free, nut-free, or vegan, our from-scratch gluten-free banana bread is built on Pamela's 1:1 All-Purpose Flour, which is rice-based and contains none of those.

Two things to check on your own shelf: chocolate chips usually contain milk and soy lecithin, and if you add nuts, buy them from a brand you trust for cross-contact.

Everything from Pamela's is certified by the Gluten-Free Certification Organization and made in a certified gluten-free, peanut-free facility.