Oaty breakfast bakes

Original recipe from Get your kids to eat anything, by Emily Leary. This book did not live up to its title promise for us (!), but this is a quick, easy and tasty recipe which I've made several times. It's a great alternative to banana bread for using up overripe bananas, and a handy healthy snack that travels well.

Ingredients:

450g yogurt of your choice (Greek or regular, any fat content seems to work)
3 medium eggs
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (can also do 3 bananas and 2 eggs)
400g porridge oats
30-80g maple syrup, to taste

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

...plus fruit/nuts/seeds of your choice. I've used milled chia seeds, chopped hazelnuts, cranberries, sultanas, pumpkin seeds. You can also add any spices or other flavours you like.

Mix the yogurt, eggs and banana. Add the dry ingredients and any add-ins and mix well. The original recipe suggested topping with fresh fruit such as blueberries or blackberries, but I haven't tried that yet.

Bake covered with foil at 180°C fan for 30 mins (recipe suggests a 30x25cm tin). I tend to line a big shallow tin/tray with silicon baking sheets, and spread the mix on those, about 1.5cm depth. 

It makes a soft but solid bar, easy to cut once cool, freezes well. Because it's moist it can go mouldy in a couple of days so freezing is recommended!

Made based on the above with low-fat natural yogurt, 3 small bananas, 2 medium eggs, 100g jumbo raisins, 80g mixed seeds and 20g cacao nibs, and cut into 20: per piece 165 cals, 7g protein, 24g carbs, 4g fat.

Black bean brownies

Original recipe from ifoodreal via 200 is plenty sweet. These are low in sugar and high in fibre.

1 400g can black beans, rinsed
2 large eggs
140g no-sugar apple sauce
48g cacao powder
60g dates
80g dark chocolate, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp bicarb
(optional) 40g protein powder
(optional) milk of your choice to loosen

I used 2 x Ella's Kitchen pear baby food (70g each) for the 'no-sugar apple sauce' (as I couldn't find any other option, and no time to make my own), and I chopped 70% dark chocolate rather than using chips. I added 40g of plain protein powder that I had been given as a sample, and some oat milk to loosen the batter (due to the powder and only having medium eggs). My food processor did't get the mixture super smooth but it's not a problem.

Baked at 175C for 30 mins in a 20cm x 20cm tin, cut into 16. It did stick to the paper a bit so there were plenty of crumbs - would use non-stick baking paper in future. Per piece: 130 calories, 9.3g protein, 2.7g fibre.

It's quite a dark, intense chocolate flavour and the inclusion of chocolate pieces in the batter is definitely needed, but it suits me perfectly as I don't like things too sweet. Using your own apple sauce rather than the quite thin baby food might be better, but it's still a good fudgy texture.

(yes, I ate one before the photo...)

Chocolate hazelnut "bliss balls"

Aldi has discontinued my favourite flavour of their Palaeo bars (cacao-hazelnut, not that I ever saw the mythical brazil-cherry that was on the shelf tag as that sounded awesome too...). I figured I could make something similar, and found this recipe from A Cupful of Kale.

80g hazelnuts (whole or chopped - I did not bother roasting mine)
200g dates
1.5 tbsp cocoa / cacao powder (5g?)
2 tbsp peanut butter (40g)
2 tbsp maple syrup (40g)

In a food processor, chop the nuts if you have whole ones, then add the rest of the ingredients and process until roll-able into balls. I had about 350g of mixture so made 17 balls of about 20g each. Two of them would be about equivalent to one of the bars.

They taste great, but could use even more cocoa flavour so next time I will add more of that, and a little salt.