Egg-Free Brown Butter Cinnamon Banana Muffins

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These egg-free brown butter cinnamon banana muffins are moist, sweet and fluffy – perfect for an afternoon treat.

Baking treats without egg is a real hit and miss at times.

Two out of my four children have an egg allergy, so I have learnt how to be more creative and versatile in the kitchen over the past seven years.

I have recently come across an incredible recipe cookbook called The Elements of Baking that has helped me break down what to actually use as egg replacements when baking muffins, cakes and cookies.

The cookbook also includes different ways (gluten free, dairy free, egg free, vegan, gluten free/vegan) to make the same recipe, which is so helpful for those who have lots of different allergies/preferences, like us.

Now, whenever I bake egg-free goods, I know what to use instead without questioning if I should use Greek yoghurt or more baking powder to the recipe.

These delicious egg-free brown butter cinnamon banana muffins tick all the boxes for my family and I know you will love them too.

What I will cover in this post

• What to use when baking egg-free
• Ingredients to use
• Method
• Recipe notes

What to use when baking egg-free

Let’s explore what we should use as an egg replacement when baking muffins.

I have found that when baking muffins without eggs, the best replacements are a combination of extra milk, baking powder, apple cider vinegar or lemon juice and sometimes Greek yoghurt.

This recipe uses a combination of Greek yoghurt, lemon juice and extra baking powder.

Ingredients to use

You will need:

• Unsalted butter
• 3 ripe bananas
• Coconut sugar (or brown sugar)
• Caster sugar (or stevia)
• Unsweetened plain Greek yogurt
• Lemon juice
• Vanilla paste
• Plain flour (or gluten free flour)
• Baking powder
• Bicarbonate soda
• Salt
• Caster sugar (or stevia) and ground cinnamon for topping

Method

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius/375 F and line a 12 hole muffin tray with paper cups.
2. Brown the butter by adding 115g of unsalted butter to a small frypan on medium-high heat. Stir continuously for about 6 minutes or until after it foams and turns into a brown colour with specks of caramelised milk solids at the bottom. Leave it aside to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the mashed bananas, sugars, yoghurt, lemon juice and vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour (see notes about gluten free flour), baking powder, bicarbonate soda and salt.
5. Gradually add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients using a rubber spatula to mix together.
6. In a separate small bowl, mix together the cinnamon sugar by whisking the extra caster sugar and ground cinnamon together and set aside to put on top of each muffin before baking in the oven.
7. Fill each muffin paper cup with the batter to the half way mark and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the top (about quarter of a teaspoon for each muffin).
8. Pop into the oven and bake for 22 minutes or until the muffins have baked right through.
9. Serve the muffins cooled with a warm cup of tea or hot chocolate.

Recipe notes

When browning the butter on the frypan, make sure to stay close at all times. As the heat is medium-high, the butter goes from simmering to foaming really quick and then will burn easily if you don’t watch it closely. Keep stirring for at most 8 minutes and once the crystalising happens, turn off the heat and remove the frypan from the stovetop.

I love to use unrefined sugars whenever I can, which is why I opt for coconut sugar over brown sugar in this recipe. However, you can choose refined sugars for this recipe too.

Because my girls can’t tolerate gluten, I used a gluten free flour for this recipe, however, if you follow the steps and measurements listed with regular flour, it will come out just fine, probably even puffier.

If you are a chocolate lover, you can add choc chips to this recipe (about 1 cup) and stir in just before you place the batter into the muffin paper cups.