Cherry, Almond, Chocolate Bake

Ever since we started making breakfast bakes it's been consecutive weekday mornings of awesomeness. Due to our insane triathlete lifestyle, most mornings begin well before dawn and include at least an hour of exercise before breakfast. After that, a full work day, and often times we pack in at least another hour of training before dinner. This makes morning a hungry, hungry time. Our bodies crave real, nutritious, easy to convert into energy food. We need to both supplement our glycogen starved muscles and kickstart our metabolism for the rest of the day. 

Studies show that having a healthy breakfast is one of the key ingredients to a successful weight loss / healthy living strategy. Too often we make dinner our biggest meal of the day and we head to bed with full bellies. Our bodies are busy trying to break down and digest too much food and get to sleep at the same time. It just doesn't work. Doesn't it simply make sense to give your body the best food possible right up front in the morning? Better yet, we bake these the night before (usually two days worth) and they are ready to heat up in the morning at work and they taste like cake!

Most of the bakes come in around 350-450 calories and are substantial in size! Fresh ground grains, nuts, fresh seasonal fruit, chia seeds, flax seeds, no added fats or refined sugars mean that you're getting a wide variety of nutrients first thing in the day! I don't mean just protein, healthy fats and fiber, check out the micro-nutrient chart below for some serious food nerding.

These bakes are made with buckwheat, which is not wheat at all - in fact, it's a seed from the rhubarb family! It contains eight essential amino acids and is gluten-free.We also include rice bran in the bakes as it is a concentrated source of many nutrients that exist in brown rice. Many of those nutrients like iron and an assortment of B vitamins are a little hard to find in a plant-based diet. Rice bran is a quick way to squeeze a bit more nutrition in per serving! It also has 18 grams of protein!

Serves 4 (can easily be doubled for 8)

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup buckwheat groats, ground (use a spice grinder or food processor)
• .25 cup rice bran
• 4 Tbsp chia seeds, ground  (use a spice grinder or food processor)
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
• 1/2 Tbsp baking powder
• 1 Tbsp stevia or other natural sweetener
• 2 bananas
• 4 tsp almond extract
• 4 large eggs (or flax eggs, mix 4T ground flax with .75c soy or nut milk)
• 3/4 cup soy or nut milk
• 1 cup cherries, halved and pitted
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup sliced almonds

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375' and spray 8x8 glass pan with cooking spray.
2. Grind buckwheat and chia using a spice grinder or food processor until sandy or fine.
3. Combine buckwheat flour, rice bran, chia, cocoa powder, baking powder and stevia and whisk in large bowl to combine.
4. In blender (or by hand) mix bananas, extract, eggs and milk until smooth.
5. Mix wet ingredients into dry. 
6. Stir in cherries, almonds and chocolate chips.
7. Pour batter into pan and bake for 45 minutes until firm in the center and slightly puffed.
8. Allow to cool in pan, remove from pan and cut into four pieces.

*Best served slightly warm, so we microwave ours the following morning for breakfast for 30-40seconds.