Coconut Baby Banana Muffins

A coconut banana baby muffin with multiple food sources of iron and fat! This recipe is bound to be a hit with your little eater and better yet, it’s freezer friendly.
a white bowl of mini coconut banana baby muffins

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This post was written in paid partnership with Manitoba Egg Farmers. As always, all opinions are our own.

Muffins can almost always be included on your mental list of “foods my baby will eat”. Am I right? Right! We’ve created a few baby muffin recipes in our ebook, Whole Food Recipes for Your Baby, and they’ve been a hit for so many of you. So, we set off in our kitchens to create more recipes that you, your baby, and even your toddler can enjoy.

While we were scheming up the perfect baby banana muffin recipe, we wanted to achieve a few things:

First, to prepare a recipe that was going to be nutrient dense with iron and healthy fats.

Secondly, ensure it was yummy without the use of refined sugar.

Lastly, safety. We wanted this recipe to be safe for a little eater who is starting out at 6 months or even an 8 month old baby who is embarking on their transition to finger foods.

Mama nation…We. Did. It.

Welcome to a baby banana muffin that’s:

  • Designed to meet your growing baby’s nutritional needs (nod to our dear friends, iron and fat)
  • Crumbly and dissolvable so that it doesn’t gum up in baby’s mouth
  • Loved by ALL ages! The adults and children in our families all adore this muffin!

Why bake for baby with fortified infant cereal?

Substituting flour for fortified infant cereal is a great way to boost the iron content of baking recipes for your baby. You’ll notice this is included on our ingredient list. We’re the type of mama-Dietitians that are all over infant cereal. Moreover, we encourage you to use it in fun ways like baking, adding it as a thickener to soups or adding some to baby friendly smoothies (yes, that’s a thing!).

Eggs contain a lot of nutrition

Eggs also help contribute a significant source of iron to this recipe. After multiple attempts and kitchen testing, we agreed that three eggs would be perfect – this allowed us to produce a muffin that not only includes iron but other key nutrients such as:

  • Fat: required for your baby’s rapid growth and development
  • Protein: important for building and repairing muscles, organs and other body tissues.  Protein is also a building block for hormones, enzymes, and antibodies
  • Iron: a critical nutrient that helps carry oxygen to all your baby’s cell; between 7 and 12 months, your baby’s iron needs are especially high
  • Choline: plays a vital role in cognitive development and processes that help your baby’s body produce and repair DNA
  • Vitamin B12: helps to keep the body’s nerve and blood cells healthy
A flatlay photo showing all the ingredients in Happy Healthy Eater's baby coconut banana muffins.

Purchasing eggs means big time local love

If you live where we do, smack in the middle of Canada in a city affectionately known as Winterpeg aka Winnipeg, Manitoba, then it’s soooooo important for you to know this: the eggs you typically purchase at your local grocery store are likely supplied by an egg farmer who isn’t too far away. Eggs found on the shelves in Manitoba are produced in Manitoba. We definitely think that’s special. After all, farmers feed the world!

Eggs are a staple food for many families, and certainly for families with a young baby, eggs are an economical way for you to offer your baby a host of nutrients!

A few more noteworthy considerations about this baby banana muffin

We know…we get excited about our new recipes. But we just can’t help but gush! It was really important for us to create a muffin recipe that was sweet tasting without the addition of refined sugar or other syrups. If you’ve been through our Start Solids Confidently e-course, you’ll know that we discourage these sweets until your kiddo is closer to age two.

So, what’s a mama to do? Rely on naturally sweet fruits and vegetables! In this case, we use the powerful properties of ripe bananas and cinnamon to enhance the sweetness.

Lastly, shredded coconut…make sure you don’t skip out on this ingredient. The coconut not only enhances the fat content of the muffin but it also helps contribute to the exact texture we were after!

close up of stacked baby banana muffins

Thanks again to Manitoba Egg Farmers for partnering with us to bring you this recipe!

Coconut Baby Banana Muffins

A coconut banana baby muffin with multiple food sources of iron and fat! This recipe is bound to be a hit with your little eater and better yet, it’s freezer friendly.
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time20 minutes
Course: Breakfast, Snack
Keyword: baby banana muffins
Servings: 24 mini muffins
Author: Jessica Penner & Nita Sharda, Registered Dietitians

Ingredients

  • 1 cup packed mashed ripe bananas about 3 bananas
  • cup canola oil
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 cup white or whole wheat flour
  • 1 cup iron fortified infant oat cereal
  • cup quick cooking oats
  • cup shredded unsweetened coconut
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (190 degrees Celsius).
  • Grease mini muffin tin or insert paper cups.
  • In a medium sized bowl, combine the bananas, oil, eggs, and vanilla with a fork.
  • In a separate large bowl, combine the flour, infant cereal, quick oats, coconut, baking soda, and cinnamon. Create a well with these ingredients.
  • In the well, add in wet ingredients. Combine everything without over mixing.
  • Divide the batter evenly between the muffin cups, filling each cup about two-thirds full.
  • Bake muffins for 20 minutes (for mini muffins, longer for full size muffins), or until a toothpick inserted into a muffin comes out clean. Err on the side of over baked as you want to ensure the crumb is crumbly, not gummy, for your baby.
  • Place the muffin tin on a cooling rack to cool.
  • The muffins can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, or in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. They keep well in the freezer in a freezer-safe bag for up to 3 months.

More Recipes Your Family Will Love

jess and nita, registered dietitians
Meet Jess and Nita

Hi! We’re both Dietitians & boy mamas! We’re here to help you confidently raise kids who will grow up to be lifelong Happy Healthy Eaters. Dig into our site for kid-tested recipes & feeding tips. 

52 thoughts on “Coconut Baby Banana Muffins”

  1. Hoping to make these tomorrow but only have infant rice cereal on hand, will that work as well as oat cereal? Thank you!

    1. Jessica Penner & Nita Sharda, Registered Dietitians

      You could likely use any type but we typically use an oat-based for this recipe!

  2. 5 stars
    I’ve made these muffins many, many times for my now 3 year-old. Today I subbed out the whole wheat flour and infant cereal for equal parts Kodiak pancake mix. They’re light and delicious with extra protein. Five star recipe 😊

    1. Jessica Penner & Nita Sharda, Registered Dietitians

      Thanks for sharing your substitution idea! Thrilled to hear that this recipe has become a family favourite!

    1. Jessica Penner & Nita Sharda, Registered Dietitians

      We were surprised when we were recipe testing how much we enjoyed the recipe as adults!

  3. 5 stars
    Brought some from our freezer stash for a recent camping trip and my baby and I loved them so much I made another batch today with the blackberries we picked. I have made them with oat cereal as well as rice cereal and can’t say I noticed a difference between the two. I really like the texture of these, found they last a lot better than any other banana based muffins I’ve made in the past. Will definitely be making them again. Thanks so much for yet another tasty baby friendly recipe!

    1. Ah! So glad to hear the recipe worked well for you, especially when out and about camping. Isn’t everything better when you’re in nature?! We hope this is a regular on your rotation!

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