Banana Protein Bars; What Could Go Wrong?

It’s been a tough week for Hannah. Eight weeks into social distancing seems to be the breaking point for our kids and add to that a sudden change in weather (snow in May??) has really kicked Hannah’s migraines into high gear. So today she’s sitting out the parenting gig and that’s fine by me.

With Hannah hiding in a dark room and the kids playing nicely downstairs (basically they’re not killing each other), I decided to try my hand at baking. Yup, you heard it right, the tech support help in the house is trying to bake something... or at the very least trying not to burn the house down.

Now, I’m going to start off by saying that I’m nowhere near as polished at baking and blogging as Hannah and this blog will seem a bit chaotic at times... mainly because it was! With that out of the way, here’s my take on chocolate chip protein bars!

One thing that our son loves to eat in the morning is a “breakfast bar”. A huge hit in our house are the 88 Acres bars. However, since we’re stuck at home, it felt like a great opportunity to see what we can figure out on our own. 

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I wonder if they sell these by the crate…

We’ll start by getting all of our ingredients (all should be top 8 allergen safe):

1. 2 medium bananas (roughly 270 grams)

2. 1.5 cups of oats (quick or rolled works)

3. 2 tbsp of chia seeds

4. 1 serving of protein powder (34 grams)

5. 1/3 cups of chocolate chips

6. 1/3 cups of raisins 

7. 1/4 cup of plant-based milk

I made some mistakes here that I will explain in the blog - give me a break, I’m new at this!

First things first; let’s make a chia egg. It’s just basically chia seeds and water that will help create a binder. I found a recipe here: https://minimalistbaker.com/make-chia-egg/

Peel your bananas and start smashing them with a fork. I know I called for 2 bananas but apparently I bought tiny bananas so I went with 3 of them. Try and get about 270 grams worth of bananas, give or take. After Hulk smashing the bananas have completed, add your chia egg and mix in... mix together... whatever you bakers usually say.

Now add your oats and protein powder. We have OWYN brand but you can use whichever brand you have available to you. I went with vanilla because I felt that chocolate powder plus chocolate chips might just be too much but customize it however you want to.

At this point of the process, it was pretty obvious to me that the mixture was as dry as the Sahara desert so I decided to add in 1/4 cup of hemp milk. You should aim for a consistency of sticky dough.

Finally add your treats. I went with 1/3 cup of chocolate chips and 1/3 cup of raisins. Whatever you add, just make sure it’s evenly incorporated in your mixture. Note that in the ingredients picture I had white chocolate chips - that was because I couldn’t find the regular chocolate chips until a little later.

Now heat your oven to 375 degrees and let the mixture sit for 5 to 10 minutes.

I used a mold to shape these into bars but I think mini muffin tins would work just fine too. Having never used this mold before, I decided to grease it with coconut oil just to make sure things come out easily. Evenly distribute your mixture into the mold and place in your oven for 12-15 minutes. When I checked at 12 minutes, it was getting firm but still hadn’t set yet so 15 minutes was the right amount of time for our oven.

Once they’re done, take them out and let them rest before removing them from the mold. I placed them on a cooling rack to let them cool down the rest of the way. This recipe made 12 bars that are about 40 grams a piece.

Once fully cooled, eat as is, or place in an airtight container in the fridge.

Pete is a guest writer and you can follow him on his instagram account: @runningofthenerd