"DOUBLE DOUBLE" CHOCOLATE BANANA CAKE (grain-free, nut-free)

This “Double Double” Cake — double chocolate and double banana — is made with both ripe bananas and banana flour. It’s nut-free, grain-free, gluten-free, and paleo-friendly, and makes a perfect nutritious-and-delicious treat for breakfast, snack time, dessert, or school lunch boxes.  It has a texture that’s a cross between a fudgy brownie and good old fashioned snacking cake. Better still, it’s refined sugar free and packed with healthy fats and protein!

Banana flour is a powder made from green bananas.  In addition to being free from grains, gluten, and nuts, it is an excellent source of gut-healthy prebiotic resistant starch.

Ingredients for one cake:

• 2 ripe bananas, mashed

• 1 cup sunflower seed butter (organic Sunbutter or homemade)

• 1 egg (or flax egg for vegan)

• 1/2 cup pure maple syrup

• 2 scoops Nuzest Clean Lean Rich Chocolate protein powder

• 1/4 cup banana flour

• 2 Tbsp Giddy Yo raw cacao powder

• 2 Tbsp arrowroot flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• pinch of pink Himalayan salt

• 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips (I used Lily’s Sweets sugar-free chocolate chips), plus optional 2 Tbsp for topping

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F and line an 8” baking pan with parchment.

2. In a medium bowl, using a hand blender, beat together banana, sunbutter, egg, and sweetener.

3. Add Nuzest, banana flour, cacao, arrowroot flour, baking soda, and salt, and beat or stir well to combine. Fold in 3/4 cup chocolate chips.

4. Spread batter in prepared baking pan, smoothing top with a spatula.  Sprinkle with additional chocolate chips as desired, and bake for 20 minutes. Cool before serving.

Enjoy as is or top with your favourite icing. Below I served it with homemade vegan coconut icing blended with Sunbutter, cacao powder, and Swerve sugar-free confectioners.

Double Double Chocolate Banana Cake can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months.

Double Double Chocolate Banana Cake topped with homemade coconut icing blended with Sunbutter, cacao powder and Swerve sugar-free confectioners.

Vegan Coconut Icing

This recipe requires coconut cream.  If coconut cream is not available, you can use the solidified cream from the top of refrigerated full-fat coconut milk.  The liquid can be reserved and used later (perhaps in a tasty smoothie!).

Ingredients:

• 1 cup well-chilled coconut cream

• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

• pure stevia or sweetener of choice, adjusted to taste

• optional: 2 Tbsp or more cacao powder and/or sunflower seed butter, adjusted to taste

Directions:

Put the cold coconut cream, vanilla, and sweetener into a bowl.  Beat until smooth.  Add cacao powder and/or sunflower seed butter as desired.  Use immediately or refrigerate until ready to spread.