Chocolate Banana Cake!!

It was one of my best friend's birthdays recently, and I celebrated by making a grand, large-scale cake version of chocolate banana brownies she had tried and loved a few months ago.  Here's some pictures!

I was trying to do a cool design with bananas on the top, but I was running out of ripe banana and it ended up looking a little like someone inebriated had made the design.  Oh well, it tasted great!

The oozing delicious frosting from the side...mmm :)

Yep, it was delicious!!

Here's the recipe:

Chocolate Banana Cake (or brownies):

Cake/brownie layers:

2 cups walnuts

2 cups almonds

2 cups dates

2 medium-large RIPE bananas, peeled

1/2 cup cacao or cocoa powder

2 tbsp. agave or honey or maple syrup

(I know, it's a lot of ingredients.  If you're making brownies, definitely halve the batch--I doubled it so I could have two 9" cake rounds.  If you use a 6" springform pan, you won't need as much.)

Grind the walnuts and almonds as finely as possible in a food processor and transfer to a bowl.  Process the dates, bananas, cacao/cocoa, and agave (don't bother cleaning out the processor) together until they are as smooth as possible (mine still had small chunks of dates, but it's not a big deal once you mix everything together).  Mix the date mixture and nut flours together in the bowl until they're mixed together properly.  Empty half of the cake into a 9" pan (adjust accordingly if using a smaller cake pan) and press down until smooth.  Invert the pan onto a dehydrator sheet.  Repeat with the other half of the dough, and dehydrate both cake rounds at 115 for 2-3 hours, or until firm on the outside.  Carefully flip one round onto a serving tray, frost with frosting, and layer with banana.  Then add the other cake round on top of it, cover with more frosting, and decorate with sliced banana to your heart's content!

Chocolate Banana Frosting

2 ripe bananas

1 tbsp agave

2 tbsp cacao/cocoa powder

A little water to start blender if necessary

Blend all ingredients together, and smother over Chocolate Banana Cake!

This frosting has a thinner texture than some thicker frostings, though it isn't runny.  If you wanted it to be a little thicker, you could add some pitted dates into the blender. 

Enjoy! This cake is rich and delicious.  By the time everyone in my family, plus my friend and some neighbors who came over, had a piece, it was gone.  :) They all loved it! So, enjoy!

Lastly, I just made these this evening.  I made the Peppermint Truffles from Sweet Gratitude, except I didn't use their chocolate coating--I made one of my own.  They WERE very yummy, but they had the texture of a gooey fudge instead of a hard, bitable chocolate.  Whoops! I guess I messed the ratios of coconut oil and agave up, since agave doesn't freeze and coc. oil does. 

Anyways, since my brother hates mint (and bananas! Devil child!) I made some of the chocolates without mint.  But...that was a few days ago.  I reminded him multiple times, in my defense, and I thought he didn't want them anymore. 

So I ate them.  :/

Which got me in hot water with my brother.  Apparently he still wanted them.  So, to make up for it, I made a couple chocolate peanut butter cups!

When they were taken out of the freezer, my family quickly demolished them.  What can I say...we're all nuts fors peanut butter!

I'm quite proud of this recipe, though--the chocolates hardened beautifully and quickly in the freezer.  :) Here's the recipe!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (almost raw)

1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp coconut oil

2 tbsp agave

2 tbsp peanut butter (try to get organic, no-ingredients-except-peanuts peanut butter)

1 tbsp. plus 1 heaping tbsp. cacao/cocoa powder

1 drop stevia extract (opt.)

Blend all together in a blender.  Make sure to do it quickly, as you don't want the chocolate to harden (coc. oil/agave reaction) before you can get it poured.  Pour the chocolate into your cups (I used a metal mini muffin tray, without paper cups) and place in the freezer.  Freeze for at least 20 minutes, and pop out of the trays.  These have a delicious chocolate flavor with an overtone of peanut butter, and delicately melt in your mouth! Enjoy!

Well, everyone, I'll post some Thanksgiving favorites of mine soon.  Until then, have a fabulous week!

Megan