I won’t try too hard to “sell” you this recipe: you havecertainly tasted banana bread before, so you know how perfectly bananas fitwith candy and cream. This is the healthy version of it without flour, sugar and milk, which, in addition to being lighter and more nutritious, is even more delicious than the regular one. The crunchy base is made of oats and pumpkinseeds, while the dates caramel and almond butter are so delicious that it’s difficult to resist eating it while making it. The cream is made of coconut milk, making this recipe much lighter than normal, although you can replace itwith regular cream. In the picture, you can see I used coconut yoghurt, but youcan easily make your own homemade cream from iced coconut milk that you canfind anywhere. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated!
Ingredients
For the base:
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds
2 cups of oats
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup coconut oil (frozen in the refrigerator for 2 hours)
2 tsp of maple syrup
2 spoons cold water
For the caramel:
-1 ½ cup dates (220gr) that have been soaked in water for at least 4 hours
-3 spoons of almond butter (or peanut butter or tahini)
-3 tsp lemon juice
-1/4 tsp salt
-Seeds from ½ Madagascan vanilla
For the cream:
2 cans of coconut milk that have been frozen in the refrigerator the night before
2 large bananas
1 dark chocolate
Preheat the oven at 190 degrees Celsius. Roast the pumpkin seeds in a small pan for 3-5 minutes and put them aside to cool down. Place the pumpkin seeds and oats in a food processor and grind until they get a flour like texture. Add the rest of the base ingredients and blend until the mixture becomes firm. Spread the mixture into a tart pan and press it with your fingers until it’s spread well. Put in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes until they start getting a brown colour.Leave it aside to cool as you make the caramel.
Put the caramel ingredients in the food processor and blend in high speed. Start adding spoonfuls of the water the dates were soaked in until the caramel has reached proper density: it must be thick but easy to spread (you most likely won’t need all the water). Once the base has cooled down, spread the caramel on it.
Cut the banana and spread it circularly over the caramel.
Without shaking the coconut milk cans too much, open them and try to remove the cream that has been separated from the water and is on the top of the tin with a large spoon. Spread it on the banana layer.
Cut the second banana into round slices and spread over the coconut cream. grate some bitter chocolate over the bananas and enjoy right away