Brought Forth From the Earth: Chocolate Covered Banana Bread with Cashew Filling

Saturday

Chocolate Covered Banana Bread with Cashew Filling

  ⁶ “I will strengthen the house of Judah
   and save the house of Joseph.
I will restore them
   because I have compassion on them.
They will be as though
   I had not rejected them,
for I am the LORD their God
   and I will answer them.
⁷ The Ephraimites will become like mighty men,
   and their hearts will be glad as with wine.
Their children will see it and be joyful;
   their hearts will rejoice in the LORD.
⁸ I will signal for them
   and gather them in.
Surely I will redeem them;
   they will be as numerous as before.
⁹ Though I scatter them among the peoples,
   yet in distant lands they will remember me.
They and their children will survive,
   and they will return. Zech 10

Ingredients:
Banana Bread:
3 ripe bananas mashed
1 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt
8 oz butter (2 sticks) softened
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
~6 cups whole wheat flour (adjust so that batter is thicker than cake batter but thinner than cookie dough)
1 cup oats
Cashew Filling:
1 cup cashew flour (cashews powdered in the blender)
1/3 cup maple syrup
Chocolate Covering:
2 oz unsweetened chocolate melted in the microwave
4 oz Neufchatel cheese 1/2 package) softened
1/2 cup evaporated cane juice

Directions:
1. mix bananas, butter, vanilla, maple syrup, and yogurt
2. add salt, baking soda and flour

3. in a second bowl mix the cashew filling ingredients

4. in a third bowl blend together the chocolate covering ingredients with a hand blender/egg beater

5. spread 1/2 the banana bread batter in a large baking pan (~2 ft X 1.5 ft)
6. spread cashew filling on top of entire first layer of banana bread batter