Banana Cream-Filled Chocolate Frozen Yogurt Cups

Abiline is on fruit strike. Well, she kind of has been since she decided that she didn't like baby food anymore--which was pretty much a month or two after she started eating it.  I make her a smoothie every day to trick her into some fruit consumption (and to add some greens and avocado, too).  When we were at Trader Joe's last week, she picked up a box of chocolate-covered bananas and put them in the cart; I didn't buy them, but I was intrigued by a way to perhaps get her to eat bananas.  Why not try chocolate yogurt-covered frozen bananas?  It seemed easier to me to use mini-muffin cups than to try to dip the bananas in the yogurt.  These mini frozen yogurt cups also have the advantage of being small, which suits my kids who are always insisting, "I want a little bite!" As you can see from the picture, they get melty pretty quick, so I recommend keeping them in mini-muffin liners and peeling back the paper as you eat them so that everyone's fingers don't get too sticky.  Or Abiline and Sawyer actually ate theirs with a fork.  Trust me, we're not usually so refined.

 

For the chocolate yogurt:
3/4 cup plain non-dairy yogurt (I use homemade.)
1 heaping Tbsp. cocoa powder
2 Tbsp. sunflower seed butter
5 pitted dates, soaked for a few hours to soften them, or microwaved for a minute and then drained
1/8 tsp. pure stevia powder (may not be necessary if you use yogurt that has some sweetener in it)

For the banana cream filling:
1 ripe banana
2 Tbsp. coconut butter

1. Prepare a min-muffin pan with cupcake liners.  If you want bigger portions, you could of course use 6 regular muffin cups instead.
2. Prepare the chocolate yogurt by buzzing all of the ingredients in a food processor or blender until totally smooth.
3. Transfer the yogurt to a bowl, clean out the blender or food processor and then puree the banana and coconut butter until smooth.
4. Spoon a generous teaspoon of chocolate yogurt into the bottom of each mini-muffin cup. Top with a generous teaspoon of banana cream filling, and then top the filling with another heaping teaspoon of yogurt. If you are using regular-sized muffin cups, then use 1-2 tablespoons of each.
5. Freeze the cups for a few hours to firm them up. I found that bigger muffin cups take much longer to get totally frozen: about 2-3 hours for the mini cups, but 5-6 for the big ones.


We are having some pretty warm days here now, so it was time this week to bust out the water games. As you can see, the kids had a blast.  Just a $2 pack of paintbrushes from Ikea and a large pot of cold water, and we had some good, clean fun. Or, it was clean until they started to add dirt and make "soup" in the pot.

This recipe is linked to Fit and Fabulous Fridays, Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Allergy-Free Wednesdays,  Whole Foods Wednesdays, Tastetastic Thursday  , Happy lil ❤'s are baking,  Wellness Weekend and Fresh Bites Fridays.