Chocolate-lover’s breakfast

I must tell you from the outset that this is literally one of the most delicious breakfasts I have ever eaten! First of all, there’s the incredible texture of jumbo rolled oats combined with frozen banana, which is thick and sturdy, with substance, yet also meltingly soft. Added to this is the incredible mixture of crunch from the combination of toppings: toasted hazelnuts, dark chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, and toasted quinoa puffs. It’s comparable to eating the best chocolate crispy rocky road-type treat, but you know it’s full of goodness and actually going to benefit your body.

I must also tell you that I am very aware that my Breakfast Recipes section is completely and utterly dominated by chocolate. Chocolate baked porridge, chocolate overnight oats, chocolate granola… I seem to have a bit of an infatuation here, but then again, I always have had! I think it would be fair to say, chocolate is a pretty important part of my life, though I eat a lot less of it nowadays than I used to. The great thing about these recipes is that they employ healthy ways of enjoying chocolate by using ingredients such as raw cacao, which takes on a beautiful flavour when combined with natural sweeteners like honey or maple syrup, yet contains plenty of anti-oxidants because it hasn’t been through the refining process that generic cocoa powder has. It’s so fun to experiment with these different combinations to see what you can come up with yourself.

Please don’t be put off by any of the ingredients you may not have heard of, such as maca powder, or even raw cacao. Both of these ingredients are available as a matter of course in low-price supermarkets such as Lidl and Aldi nowadays. Raw cacao, as mentioned above, is the unprocessed from of cocoa powder, and maca powder is the root of a plant found in the Andes. It has a flavour which I can best describe as earthy-caramel, and it gives a distinctly sweet flavour to whatever you add it to. I bought the dark chocolate sunflower seeds and puffed quinoa used in here in Lidl too, but the latter is the kind of ingredient you’ll need to look out for when they have it in stock, otherwise look in a health-food shop. You could always try swapping them for rice krispies if need be.

You’ll notice the inclusion of frozen banana; freezing your old bananas is an absolute must, and works fantastically for bananas which are bruised and brown. Either put the whole banana in the freezer and when you want to use it (frozen bananas are great for baking) simply remove from the freezer, defrost for about 45 minutes, then chop off the top and allow the defrosted flesh to plop out in one long length. For this recipe though, I used a banana which I’d peeled and chopped before putting it in a tub in the freezer at some point before, but at least overnight. I took it out about 15 minutes before I wanted to make the banana ice-cream as I still wanted it to be frozen, but for the food-processor to be able to handle it! That’s the method you’ll need to use here.

Ingredients

• 1 chopped frozen banana, as described above
• 30g jumbo rolled oats
• 1 tsp maca powder
• 1 ½ dessertspoons raw cacao
• 1 dessertspoon honey
• 1 tbsp puffed quinoa
• Handful dark chocolate sunflower seeds
• Large handful hazelnuts

Equipment

• Food processor

Method

Remove the banana from the freezer about 15 minutes before you want to eat.
Place banana in a food processor along with the oats, maca powder, raw cacao and honey. Blitz until well combined and clumped together, but not so much that it starts to thaw excessively. Serve into a bowl.

Put a small, dry frying pan on the hob on a high heat and toast the hazelnuts. When nicely coloured, tip onto a chopping board, and when cool enough, roughly chop so you end up with a mixture of different-sized pieces. Sprinkle these onto the banana and oat mixture, then add the puffed quinoa to the frying pan and toast for about half a minute until starting to colour. Sprinkle these on too, with the sunflower seeds.

Enjoy the best breakfast ever!

Thanks for reading, dear foodies!

xxx Sam