Creating a Recipe – A Banana, Maple Syrup and Choc Chip Slice Recipe.

Last week for “National Oatmeal Cookie Day”, I did spend some time creating a bake a sweet treat using oatmeal  but it didn’t turn out to be a cookie even though that is what I was intending to bake. Instead I made a Flapjack/Breakfast Bar/Slice (as my daughter would describe it).

I wanted to use up the overripe bananas and  try creating something where I removed all the sugar from the recipe but as I don’t like the strong taste of overripe bananas I decided to add a little bit of maple syrup and chocolate chips to mask the banana flavour a little bit. This did add a bit more sweetness to the recipe but not too much as we are talking tablespoons here not grams.

The bananas, maple syrup and chocolate chips are providing a lot of calories, sugars and carbohydrate to the recipe but if you remove the syrup and reduce the butter by the a third a lot of the nutritional values are reduced. I have added these results below:-

• Calories 122.4
• Total Fat 7.0 g
• Saturated Fat 4.1 g
• Polyunsaturated Fat 0.5 g
• Monounsaturated Fat 1.7 g
• Cholesterol 13.7 mg
• Sodium 2.3 mg
• Potassium 92.0 mg
• Total Carbohydrate 14.8 g
• Dietary Fibre 1.9 g
• Sugars 5.1 g
• Protein 1.6 g

I didn’t use eggs or milk or flour in the recipe to make this recipe more allergen friendly. This recipe is very healthy and it is great as a treat or snack on the run or in a packed lunch too. I baked the mixture in a tray and sliced it into handy sized pieces before storing in an airtight container. It lasted for about 5 days before the banana smell got too much for me and I had to throw away the last two pieces. I enjoyed it the most when it was fresh from the oven and still warm but my eldest daughter and my husband have been eating it for breakfast and snacks at work, as well as, in my daughter’s packed lunch.

This is a recipe which is really easy to make and all the family have enjoyed over the last few days. You could add nuts to this recipe, such as, walnuts or even some dried fruit to compliment the bananas.  Another recipe which I am going to try again is to make a Chocolate Banana Cake using bananas as the main sugar source. I have made a Chocolate Banana Cake before and shared the recipe somewhere in my recipe books (I think). If you don’t like bananas you could try making these with apple sauce which I know some bakers have tried as a source of natural sugars instead of adding refined sugars. I have never tried creating using apple sauce but it is something I will be working with in the near future.