This recipe is already one of my favourites for a snack solution, and it actually came from my needing to bake to distract myself from discomfort after having one of my wisdom teeth out last week. Inspired by my previous recipes using bananas in baking (plus they’re amazing on their own of course!) I decided to use up some strawberries I had picked up for smoothies (soft foods and liquids after wisdom tooth removal are ideal!). The result was a happy success, and I can’t wait to see what you guys think!

Recipe (Makes 12 Squares)

Ingredients

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tbsp melted coconut oil
• 2 whole eggs
• 2 large ripe bananas
• 1/3 cup of honey (you can sub maple syrup here if you prefer)
• 10 strawberries
• 150g oats, blended into flour (I use Flahavan’s)
• 50g oats, unblended
• 50g of raw pecans, roughly chopped

Pre-bake!

Post-bake!

Method 

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200C (fan oven). Line a square (if not exactly square that’s fine!) baking tin with grease-proof paper or spray with cooking spray. The baking tin should be about 1 inch (ish) deep.
2. De-leaf the strawberries and slice them lengthways (see how mine are sliced in the photo). You’ll be using some to put in the batter and some for topping.
3. Take a large mixing bowl. Add the dry ingredients – oats, oat flour, cinnamon and chopped pecans.
4. Using a power blender (I use my Nutri-bullet) or a food processor, blend the bananas, eggs, honey and melted coconut oil.
5. Create a small well in the centre of the dry ingredients, and pour in the blended wet mixture. Grab a large spoon, and stir until you have a batter-tastic texture, ensuring all the dry ingredients are well-combined with the wet.
6. Add most of the strawberries to the batter – save 12 slices for topping (see the photo) – and fold them in so they’re combined into it.
7. Pour the batter into your lined baking tin.
8. Smooth down the batter evenly. Take your remaining strawberry slices and place them on top of the batter.
9. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes.
10. Stick a tooth-pick in at the 30 minutes. It should come out mostly clean!
11. Remove from the oven and allow the squares to cool for 20 minutes before tucking in! Store in a sealed tupper-ware and they should keep for up to 5 days! Or freeze them if you’re batch-baking!

Enjoy guys! Tag me if you try this one out – @theirishbalance on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook! And don’t forget to give my Podcast a listen if you enjoy audio-content – I’m sharing weekly episodes right here!

Ciara 🙂 x