So Guilt-Free You Can Eat These For Breakfast: Chewy Gooey Maple Oatmeal Banana Squares

Well these were just a little bit delicious. Okay, maybe tremendously delicious. Tre-mend-ously! However, this is my opinion and you might have to prepare a batch for yourself and taste test them. Heck what am I writing, how could you simply taste test these beauties? Realistically, you are going to consume at least one if you are human and didn’t just come back from a huge all you can eat buffet or an extremely delish, completely filling dinner. Odds are neither of these scenarios are the case {please let this not be the case} and hopefully this recipe post is making you and your mouth on the hungry side and yearning for your own batch of these banany treats.

Also note, I am incurably flower obsessed. As in, I put flowers on food and around it because I cannot help it. I go on flower obsession auto-pilot basically every single day and flowers end up in my food photography quite frequently because of my flower-driven DNA {or XX chromosome ~ call it what you may}.

Now as for this recipe, the truth is that it should have been invented and taken residence on this blog a long time ago because if I had known how easy and banana maply heavenly these bars would be, I would have shared them with your eyes and taste buds on the day I invented this blog. Okay, maybe the same month I invented this blog because I do remember that being an exceptionally busy time of my life, but I would have done it within at least a month of blog inception. If only I had known! Of course, we must not and should not go back and time. We can only move forward now with this superb recipe. And move forward with this new recipe we shall! It took me less than 20 minutes to prepare the entire batch and I can enjoy one for breakfast every day this week if I want to! You may want to follow my lead because this recipe is just too easy.

Now, a bit about me and bananas. Perhaps you can relate with some other food. While I abhorred bananas in my youth {I was a strange anti-banana child}, I love them now, especially as sweeteners in my plant-based dessert recipes. I hope you are more like the adult me and less like the child me and agree that bananas are delicious either on their own or in desserts like this one. It’s remarkable how much our food preferences can change from childhood to adulthood.

If there are any munchkins in your life {munchkins subjectively defined by me as humans under the age of 13}, I believe there is a high likelihood that they will find this recipe as delicious as I do now. I hope most children are not like the childhood me and do enjoy bananas and banana flavored foods. There are too many delicious bananas in this world and it would be tragic for them not to get eaten by human youngsters.

These beauties melt-in-your-mouth like maply butter, yet they are 100% devoid of any animal-derived ingredients. You can make them gluten-free by replacing the whole wheat pastry flour with oat flour, just make sure that the oat flour is labeled “gluten-free.” Oats are naturally gluten-free, but cross contamination from other grains can occur in some factories, which is why people who are gluten-free should seek the “gluten-free” label when purchasing oats. Then again, if you are gluten-free you probably already know this. Now onto the recipe!

Ingredients (makes 6-8 squares):

2 medium to large very ripe bananas, peeled ½ whole wheat pastry flour or oat flour for gluten-free version 1 teaspoon baking powder ½ cup pure maple syrup 2 tablespoons Earth Balance or another vegan margarine 2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds or chia seeds 1 tablespoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground vanilla or vanilla extract 2 cups steel-cut or rolled oats (just not instant)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease a square baking pan. This recipe filled my 8×8 pan half way, so you can use a smaller pan and it will still fit with no trouble. Another option is pouring the batter into muffin tins and making these squares circular. Options abound!

Once this step is done, add all ingredients except the oats to a food processor and thoroughly process. Pour this mixture into a large bowl along with the oats and mix the oats together with the mixture. Pour the now very oaty batter into your baking pan and bake for 2o minutes or until the batter is slightly golden colored and the top has hardened. Cool for at least fifteen minutes before slicing into squares and enjoy these beauties, perhaps with a cherry on top for good luck!

As always, thank you for reading!

Talia

#weightloss #dessert #healthy #vegan #bananas #glutenfree #breakfast