I don't know if I ever told you, but I'm a sucker for bananas. I eat some on a daily basis. The other day, when I came back from the grocery store, my boyfriend asked me if we were raising a chimp - maybe because I bought 3 bunches of bananas, who knows-. I first laughed and then I realized I might have a serious issue. I mean, I need to have plenty of bananas in my kitchen. So, obviously when I go grocery shopping I buy tons of them.
The thing is, I like my bananas unripe, almost green. When they start to ripe, well, they taste different and it's not the same fruit for me anymore. But there's no way I'm going to waste them, right? Right. The first solution I have is my boyfriend. He loves ripe bananas. Good for me. But, unlike me, he's not willing to eat more than one a day. So I need a backup plan, and it consists in baking a lot of banana-based stuff. Like my favorite banana bread, or banana muffins or banana oatmeal cookies or...banana everything. Very ripe bananas taste super good when they're baked, you know that? Anyway, last week I had a couples bananas slowly dying on my counter so I decided to make a crisp, because the crunchy topping of a crisp is obviously super good. And there's oat in it, so basically, it means it's healthy. I added a few chocolate chips, just for fun. It took me about 3 minutes to get everything done + 15 minutes in the oven. And then I died. Guys, I'm asking you, is there anything better than warm banana? Well, I don't think so.
Individual Banana Chocolate Chips Crisp
Ingredients
Ingredients for one ramequin
Topping:
- 1 tbsp quick rolled oats
- 1 tsp whole wheat flour
- ½ tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp butter melted
Filling
- 1 banana sliced
- 1 tsp sugar optional, only if your bananas aren't sweet enough
- 1 tbsp chocolate chips
Ingredients for four ramequins
Topping
- 4 tbsp quick rolled oats
- 4 tsp whole wheat flour
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 4 tsp butter melted
Filling
- 4 tsp sugar optional
- 4 bananas sliced
- 4 tbsp chocolate chips
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 375F.
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In a small bowl, combine oats, flour and sugar. Add melted butter and mix.
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In a medium bowl (or directly in the ramequin is you're only making one), combine banana, sugar and chocolate chips. Transfer to four ramequins.
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Top with oats mixture and bake for about 15 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Serve warm and enjoy!
Lauren
Yum Marie! This looks delicious! I love your spin on it with the bananas...very creative. 🙂
Marie
Oh thanks Lauren! You've got to try this one, I'm sure you would love it! By the way, I love the 'sugar free' series on your blog. I'm trying to seriously cut down on sugar too!
Sonia! The Healthy Foodie
Marie, here's a tip for you!
When your bananas are really good and ripe, cut them in half, peel them and stuff them in a resealable plastic bag. Throw that in the freezer and you'll always have bananas on hand to make smoothies, soft serves, muffins, breads and all sorts of other goodies!
And I am so right with you on the green banana thing! That's when they're at their best, on a nice piece of whole grain toast with a little bit of all natural nut butter... YUM!
As for this crisp, it looks incredible! But pssst... I think you've inverted sugar and fiber in the nutritional info... 😉
Marie
Hey Sonia! Thanks for the tip! I always keep sliced bananas and other fruits in the freezer for my green monster smoothies 🙂
I double checked the nutritional info and they are correct, if you are to believe the USDA nutrient database. There's really not a lot of added sugar in those crisp. I didn't use some with the bananas, as they were sweet enough, I only added a bit in the crisp mixture...
Sonia! The Healthy Foodie
I understand that... but if a medium banana alone has around 15g of sugar, how could there be only 4g in the entire recipe? And 26g of fiber seems like an awful lot. That's more than an entire day's worth! Or maybe I'm reading it wrong? Not that it really matters, anyway, please don't think I'm trying to be a pest! 😉
I really like that USDA Nutrient Database site, by the way... I didn't even know it existed (shame on me!) What an amazing source of extremely valuable information! Thanks so much for posting that. But do you really calculate your nutritional info by crunching the numbers for each individual ingredient? Or do they have a tool that does that for you?
Marie
You're right, there's obviously something wrong here! I'm going to calculate that again from scratch.
Unfortunately they do not have a tool that calculates the nutritional value of an entire recipe. I created a Excel doc and I enter every single ingredient and its value... Takes a lot of time, but it's the best solution I've found so far!
What do you use for your blog?
Sonia! The Healthy Foodie
Try this tool
It'll save you loads of work! You still have to spend a little time making sure that all the ingredients are right (sometimes it'll give you raw beans for cooked, for instance, or weirder things like fried chicken for chicken breasts...)
Still, it's pretty accurate and it's made my life a WHOLE lot easier! Hope it does the same for you! 🙂
Lyrra
I just made this with pecans instead of chocolate and it was delicious! I didn't have proper ramekins, so I ended up using a mini loaf pan instead. I think I'll try adding a pinch of salt next time, to see how that changes the taste.
Really great along side a good cuppa tea. 🙂
marie
Using pecans is a great idea! I'm glad you enjoyed this recipe Lyrra 🙂