Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Muffins

Whoa----what a mouthful for a muffin so early on a Monday morning!!! I tried to think of a shorter name for my newest creation, but I wanted to include all of its deliciousness in the title.

So how was your weekend? Ours was fairly uneventful. My body has been fighting a sore throat and cold for the last 4 or 5 days and I was feeling really wiped out, so I tried to take it easy as much as I could. Even though I hate feeling under the weather, there's a part of me that is so proud of my healthy body and how strong and awesome it is for fighting off all the colds and flus that are going around. I very rarely catch the seasonal bugs {I'm knocking on wood right now!} and I think right now I'm fighthing off the killer cold my dad had while he was visiting. He had a sore throat and filled sinuses and was pretty much down for the count all day on January 2nd. While I'm not feeling 100%, I can feel my body working hard to fight this cold off. My throat's been scratchy and my head is feeling a little full, but I've managed to carry on with my day-to-day stuff without too much interruption. I think my body's been working in overdrive and that's why I'm feeling so tired. See how beneficial regular exercise and good healthy eating is for our bods?! 

Speaking of good healthy eating....that's what I've been trying to do now that the holidays are behind us. My goal is to eat lots of fruits and veggies, get WAY more water in each day and to reduce the amount of sugar and processed foods. I'm also putting a stop to the late night snacking. 

I don't know about you, but I find it so hard to get back to healthy eating after Christmas. My body seems to be craving sugar and carbs on a daily basis and it is not easy to say no! Fruit and chocolate chai tea have been helping to curb the cravings, but I decided I needed to try to come up with a satisfying treat for those cravings that just refused to go away. 

I had some ripe bananas that were begging to be used and I've been craving chocolate peanut butter cups pretty regularly (thank you to my husband who brings them home waaaayyyyy too often!) and that's how I came up with the idea of making a chocolate peanut butter banana muffin. I subbed in some healthy ingredients for some not-so-healthy ones and the result was a pretty delicious, pretty good for ya muffin! A couple of my ingredients are not readily available in Canada (sorry friends), but I have linked up to the sites so that you can have a look and I have suggested substitutes.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

3 bananas, mashed
1/4 c unsweetened applesauce
2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened (Earth Balance would work)
3 tbsp Truvia (you could use 1/4 c brown sugar)
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 c Dark Chocolate Dreams Peanut Butter (regular peanut butter would work maybe mixed with a little cocoa powder - you'd have to experiment with this)
1 1/3 c unbleached flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp sea salt

Preheat your oven to 325. Line a muffin tin with paper muffin cups.

In a large bowl, mix together the bananas, applesauce, butter, Truvia, vanilla and peanut butter. Mix until well combined. I left my bananas a little chunky because I like to get a little bit of banana in my muffin - you can mash as much as you would like and make your batter as smooth as you want.

Add in the flour, baking soda and sea salt. Mix well.

Evenly distribute the muffin batter into the 12 muffin cups.

Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Remove from oven and place muffins on cooling rack.

Adding applesauce to a recipe is a great way to naturally sweeten

and it can replace the oil you would typically use.

This muffin pan is as old as the hills, but I love it because I always have success when I use it!

Mmmmmm. Sweets craving destroyed.

What do you use as substitutes to make your favourite recipes a little more healthy?
What's your favourite kind of muffin?

Enjoy your day!!!

Andrea