Ice-Cream and Giggles

Sundaes. A girl's dream dessert. Ice-cream with multiple sauces, flavourings and toppings, a mix of sweet and savoury, a melted sweet drip with vanilla bean, a crunch of peanut butter, a dash of salted pretzel, and a smooth chocolate sauce to tie it all together *drools*. Have I convinced you that you need to try this combo? However, if you are like "hmm" and "ahh" and aren't entirely convinced, please at least take away the fact you NEED to try fresh vanilla bean in your nice-cream. It may only be a small amount, but trust me, it takes it up few notches, without really even trying. To here's to summer and spending those hot days slurping and drinking our nice-cream!

Serves 1-2, Total time: 10 minutes.

You will need:

3 frozen bananas
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
1/2 scraped out vanilla bean
1 tbsp peanut butter
1 tbsp du chocolat drinking cocoa powder
1/2 tbsp boiling water
handful of vegan pretzels (I used vegan GF pretzels as they were what I had in my cupboard, but use what you have)

Method:

1. In a bowl, mix the du chocolat with the boiling water and stir until you get a sauce.
2. In a food processor/high-speed blender, combine the bananas, almond milk and vanilla bean until a smooth nice-cream is made.
3. Roughly mix in the peanut butter and combine with the chocolate sauce and pretzels. Eat!

I have been forever searching for a chocolate banana bread, and a few efforts in the past have been complete fails. But huzzah, this one was not! I am so impressed with myself, seriously *pats self on back*. It doesn't crumble, it is dense in a good way, yummy, and oil free! It uses apple sauce to replace oil/egg: you can find puree apple with no sugar usually in the baby food section! Weird, I know. Why do babies get all the goods? This bread does have a slight undertone of apple, but the chocolate, banana and apple flavours just get one another, you know?

Prep: 15 minutes, baking: 1 h 15 min. Total time: 1 h 30 minutes.

You will need:

3 small/medium bananas
1/3 cup apple sauce/apple puree
1/2 cup natvia sugar free baking sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup unsweetened almond milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 cup almond meal
1/2 cup brown rice flour (or other GF flour)
1/2 cup buckwheat flour (or other GF flour)
1/4 cup du chocolate drinking cocoa powder 
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp cacao powder
1/2 tsp salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
2. In a blender, add the almond milk and apple cider, and let rest for 2 minutes (don't blend). Then add the banana, apple sauce and vanilla and blend. Then add the sugar and cocoa and cacao powders and blend again.
3. Pour mix into a bowl. Sift and hand mix in the rest of the ingredients (minus almond meal: just hand whisk that in). Pour into a lined bread tin, and bake for 55-1 h 15 minutes. Check at 40 minutes, then check every 5 minutes with a skewer/tooth pick until cooked (when skewer comes out clean). Remove from oven.
4. Let bread completely cool before cutting (3 - 5 hours).

So I believe I have, in the past, professed my love for Nutella. On numerous occasions. Ahh that gooey hazelnut concoction is to die for! Except that it is not vegan friendly. This Nutella however is super delicious, only requires 2-3 ingredients and half an hour of your time. I used a favourite product of mine, du chocolat drinking cocoa which is sweetened with natvia (stevia), so it's a sugar free option. This recipe would probably work with other drinking chocolate powders (just make sure it has no dairy), but then this recipe would not be sugar free. The soy milk powder is optional (it is hard to get, I know: I found mine from iHerb), but it does help make it creamy, like the traditional Nutella.

Makes 1 jar. 

You will need:

2 cups of raw hazelnuts
2-3 tbsp du chocolate drinking cocoa powder
2 tsp organic soy milk powder (optional)

Method:

1. Place your hazelnuts on a lined tray, and bake in oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 10-12 minutes. Remove when you can see the skins starting to peel off. Let cool for ten minutes.
2. Once the nuts are cool, rub them between your hand to remove skins. You don't need to get all the skins off, but try to get most.
3. Blitz the hazelnuts in your food processor/blender. Have your machine on low until the oils start to release and a gooey hazelnut butter is formed. This can take 5-10 minutes. Be patient!
4. Add du chocolat powder, 1 tbsp at a time until you reach desired taste. If using soy milk powder, add as well.