Super Healthy Banana Ice Cream Cups

It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon and I'm spending the day cooking, cleaning up the apartment a little bit, and sitting on the patio sipping a glass of wine. (I know my wine probably isn't vegan so I hope that doesn't offend anyone.) Something I learned about myself is that I'm super motivated by to-do lists and I have had an amazingly productive day because crossing thing on the list out is so fun and I feel so accomplished after! So one thing that was on my to-do list was to get this recipe for the HEALTHIEST DESSERT IN THE WORLD up. The only "bad thing" in here is the coconut oil in the chocolate topping, but it can still be omitted and be delicious and sweet without it.

*My note on coconut oil : A lot of people tout coconut oil as a health food, and there is a lot of scientific back and forth on how healthy it is. In my opinion, it's okay as a treat once in a while, or maybe even 1 tbs. a day, but I don't think we should be drizzling it in our food and bingeing on baked goods made with coconut oil because it is still a very refined food (even extra virgin) that is high in calories and high in saturated fat. If you are trying to lose weight I would say stay away from it altogether.. I think the high caloric content offsets any possible metabolism-boosting qualities there are other foods that have metabolism boosting effects and that are low calorie like green tea or hot peppers or grapefruit. Um, but yeah, it is delicious so it's made it's way into this yummy dessert :O)

Back to the recipe. I pretty much loooove anything that can be made in a cupcake pan because it is so dang easy and everything will be portioned out for you without having to cut it up. I also wanted to make a low oil dessert that is guilt free, yummy and packs a high nutrient profile. Well this is it!! The crust is made from nuts and seeds, sweetened with dates. The "ice cream" is made from bananas and the topping ohhh heavens it's good. Remember those toppings you'd get as a kid at the supermarket that freeze on ice cream and harden? Well this is just like that without all the preservative hooplah and refined sugars.

The recipe is really forgiving since it's raw so you can pretty much do whatever you want to it. If you don't really like the banana ice cream on it's own you can add a couple tablespoons of coconut oil for a creamier texture. You can swap the nuts and seeds in the crust for any kind you want. Maybe a topping of peanut butter instead of chocolate would be delicious (or PB AND CHOCOLATE), etc., etc, you get the idea.

I hope everyone else is enjoying some warmer weather! And eating these amazing banana ice cream cups.

Posted in Home Improvement Post Date 01/31/2017