Double Chocolate Protein Banana Bread - Vegetarian + GF

Since being introduced to Naked Nutrition's clean protein powders with minimal, straight-forward ingredients, I've been having so much fun playing around and coming up with new plant-based protein-packed recipes. Their Chocolate Less Naked Pea Protein contains just pea protein, raw cacao, and coconut sugar. That's it! No weird junk and nothing to hide. So naturally, I've been having a blast trying it out in all of the chocolatey goodness that I can think of, and this week is no different! In fact, I was feeling extra chocolatey this week which led me to this double chocolate protein banana bread recipe.

It's not only packed with all of the chocolate. It also brings the protein and other nutrients while being vegetarian, dairy free, and gluten free. It can also easily be made vegan by swapping out the eggs with flax eggs or nut free by swapping out the almond milk. It's basically the perfect way to Saturday, and will most likely be gone by the end of the weekend. No joke.

Here's What You'll Need:

-2 ripe (ideally spotty) bananas
-1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
-3/4 cup coconut flour
-2 eggs
-1 scoop Naked Nutrition's Chocolate Less Naked Pea Protein powder
-1 tsp baking powder
-2 tbsp chocolate sunflower seed butter (I used this one) or the nut butter of your choosing
-1 tbsp cacao powder (I used this one)
-1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (or other milk of your choosing)
-1/2 cup dairy-free dark chocolate chips 

Instructions:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2) Mash your bananas in a bowl with a hand mixer or wooden spoon.
3) Mixed in the coconut oil, eggs, sunflower seed butter, and almond milk.
4) Add in the dry ingredients (minus the chocolate chips), and mix until well combined.
5) Fold in the chocolate chips. I reserved a few to add onto the top at the end, but feel free to add them all in if desired.
6) Pour the mixture into a greased or parchment-lined loaf pan, and spread it out evenly.
7) Bake in to the oven for about 50 minutes (until a toothpick comes out clean).
8) Let the bread cool a bit for about 15-20 minutes before removing and slicing it.
9) Serve, and enjoy!

Hello chocolate heaven! Am I right? I know what I'm having as my dessert...and pre and post-workout snacks...and probably breakfast, lunch and dinner the next few days. But really, it's hard to keep your hands off (and mouth full) of this banana bread. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Gluten Free and Vegan Chocolate Chunk Almond Butter Banana Bread and French Toast

I'm pretty sure it must be a written rule somewhere that if it's a rainy day and you have ripe bananas, you need to make banana bread. Well, at least it should be a rule. Baking and rainy days are pretty much a must, and ripe bananas obviously mean banana bread. So banana bread it was!

I recently started using the Neat Egg (as I mentioned previously) as an egg replacement in some of my recipes. It has actually been wonderful! I'm not personally vegan, but my mom is. So it's nice to be able to bake something that I can actually offer her a piece of. Plus, you really can't even tell that there isn't an egg in the recipe, so the non-vegans will never know. 

I was fortunate enough to be able to team up with Neat over on my Instagram to give one lucky winner a full Neat prize pack which includes the Neat Egg and two Neat meat replacement mixes (original and Mexican). You still have a little time to enter (about 2 hours), so go check it out! In the meantime, let's get to the recipe!

Here's What You'll Need:

-3 ripe bananas
-1 Neat Egg
-1 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
-3 tbsp Gone Nuts Date Me almond butter
-1 cup coconut flour
-1 tbsp baking powder
-Pinch of sea salt
-1/2 of a 3 oz dark chocolate bar (I used an 88% cocoa bar, but that may be a bit bitter for some. Use whatever you like), broken into small chunks

Instructions:

1) Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2) Using a small hand mixer (or a KitchenAid style mixer works just as well),  mix together all of the ingredients except the chocolate chunks.
3) Fold the chocolate chunks into the mixture using a wooden spoon.
4) Pour the mix into a loaf pan that is either lined with parchment or sprayed with nonstick spray.
5) Bake for about 1 hour. Ovens may vary, so keep an eye on the bread. When it's ready the top should be golden brown.
6) Remove the bread from the oven, and let it cool completely before removing it from the pan.
7) Once cool, you can remove the bread and slice it.
8) Top with some additional Gone Nuts or the toppings of your choice, and enjoy!

A few things about the bread, there aren't a lot of added sweeteners like sugar or maple syrup because the Gone Nuts almond butter contains dates, vanilla, and coconut oil. If you're swapping out for a different brand, especially an unsweetened almond butter, definitely take this into consideration. I also didn't want an overly sweet bread because you can always add more almond butter or sweet toppings, but you can't take it out. If you prefer really sweet, feel free to add in some maple syrup or the sweetener of your choosing!

I also ended up using the bread to make some delicious gluten free and vegan French toast which I highly recommend! All you need is about 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk, 1 tsp maple syrup, 1 tsp quinoa flour, 2 tsp nutritional yeast, and 1/2 tsp of cinnamon. Mix it all together in a bowl, and dip the banana bread slices into the mixture. Cook the slices in a pan on the stove top over medium to medium high heat, flipping half way through until each side is a golden brown. I topped mine with some maple syrup and more Gone Nuts, and it was SO GOOD.

Let me know if you give it a try and what you think in the comments below!