Feeling stressed, having a sugar craving? You aren’t alone. When we are stressed our body produces cortisol. Your body tries to fight this by craving carbs or sugar as these produce serotonin in the body which makes you feel calmer and more relaxed. For lots of us there’s an emotional relationship with sugar. We can crave it because we are feeling lonely, depressed or tired.
For Stress Awareness Month we are here to help you combat that inevitable reach for the biscuit tin with a banana and chocolate marble loaf. Not only does it look great (the swirly effect makes you look like a really credible baker) but aside from the goodness of the CBD dark chocolate balls (dark chocolate is a rich source of antioxidants and minerals and contains less sugar than milk chocolate) this loaf is entirely processed sugar free.
Keeping your blood sugar balanced is important to limit cravings. Eating every 3-4 hours with a balance of protein fat and carbs can help. Above all - don’t feel guilty or bad for craving sugar, it affects nearly all of us and its often the body’s way of telling us something. Sometimes its habitual, it’s how we reward ourselves as a treat or that feeling of needing to finish off a meal with something sweet. Often it’s that we need to slow down or look inwards for why we are feeling the way we are. There are alternatives, fresh fruit (especially lower GI fruits such as berries) cinnamon is a great natural sweetener (swap it for the chocolate dusting on your morning cappuccino) or make your own snack balls using dates, nuts and coconut. Sometimes it’s worth jotting down when you get the craving and how you feel can really help to identify why and where the feeling is coming from.
Recipe
3 large overripe bananas
½ cup tapioca flour
2 cups of almond or coconut flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
¼ cup of melted coconut or butter (I used butter)
¼ cup of date syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup dark cacao powder
2 packs of Love Hemp dark chocolate CBD infused balls (100mg CBD in whole loaf cake, split into 6 servings = 16mg CBD per slice)
Chewy banana coins to decorate the top
Method
- Preheat the oven to 175c
- Line and grease a loaf tin (standard size)
- Mash the bananas in a bowl
- Add the remining ingredients except the cacao powder and chocolate balls
- Use a hand mixer to mix (or a very thorough stir if you don’t have one)
- Pour half the batter in one bowl and the other into another. Add the cacao powder then the chocolate balls to one half. Mix in gently.
- Dollop alternate of the two mixtures in the loaf tin
- Use a cake tester or knife to swirl the mixture using a figure of eight.
- Add chewy bananas in a line.
- Bake for around 50 minutes ( you may need to pop some foil on the top or turn the banana coins to prevent them from burning about half way through.
- Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before removing and slicing. I like mine buttered and warm!
- Enjoy 😊
