Banana Maple & Walnut Raw Energy Cookies

These Banana Maple and Walnut treats are not naughty at all...

I have to be honest and say I’m trying to be healthier. When I started Cakeyboi back in 2012, I had recently lost about 3 stone and was feeling great.

I loved baking, and it seemed at the time I could bake (and eat) pretty much anything I liked and I stayed thin. But over the years the pounds have piled back on and my energy levels have dipped.

As much as I enjoy my sweet treats, I always say they are sometimes treats and not every day eats! I am getting married later this year and want to lose a few pounds before the big day. Orka the whale would not look good in wedding photos.

I will bring you more about the big day in months to come, but in the meantime I am going to try and make some healthier treats for us all to enjoy.

I’m not abandoning my sweet-tooth altogether. There will still be plenty of sugar-infused mayhem between now and then, but I shall try and balance this with some healthier spins on sweet treats.

And to start with I am sharing with you a favourite of mine – banana, maple and walnut energy cookies. I say cookies as they are disc shaped, but you could make these in any shape you wanted. Bliss balls are very popular, bars or triangles whatever you can mould the mix into.

I made these discs in my Optimum 9400 blender from Froothie. I cannot recommend this blender more, it really copes with any old sticky stuff I shove in it. As you have probably seen in previous posts this blender can even crush concrete!

But for this recipe  I am using dried banana which I found in a local health food store. It comes in a block and looks a bit suspicious in it’s raw state, but blended up with other ingredients can become so much more.

We are getting married in Canada, and I love the country’s main export - maple!  I stop myself from saying maple syrup as I also have maple sugar in the cupboard which is amazing stuff. Crystallised maple syrup, maple sugar has equal amounts of flavour.

In these raw cookies I pack dried banana, dried dates, maple sugar AND syrup plus walnuts. These are so tasty and provide you with plenty of energy before a session at the gym or a long ramble. Not too sinful at all!

They taste just as good as your breakfast waffle topped with bananas and syrup but are not quite so naughty!

(I got my dried banana from Holland and Barrett, but are easily purchased online).

Here’s how I made them…

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Banana Maple and Walnut Energy Cookies

by S Vettese May-26-2016

Dried banana, maple and walnut in these healthier take on cookies.

Ingredients

• 150 grams dried banana
• 70 grams pitted dates
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 tablespoon maple sugar
• 50 grams walnuts

Instructions

Place the dried banana, dates, maple syrup and sugar plus 30 grams of walnuts in a blender and blitz until the ingredients resemble a smooth substance.Remove the blend and place into greaseproof paper and chill for an hour.After the hour, remove from the fridge and roll between two sheets of greaseproof paper until about a quarter of an inch thick.Cut out circles about 2 inches in diameter.Blitz the remaining walnuts in the Optimum 9400 until they resemble breadcrumbs.Dust the discs in the walnut crumbs.Chill the circles on greaseproof paper, about 2 hours more.Enjoy!

Details

Prep time: 10 mins Cook time: 2 hour Total time: 2 hour 10 mins Yield: 20 cookies approx.

Disclosure Statement: I received the blender free to review. Any opinions expressed are my own.