Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

This was one of the desserts I made for the fundraiser we held to raise money for the Philippines! I wanted to make healthier versions of desserts so we wouldn’t go too far down the path of never-again-shall-we-ever-eat-like-this. Basically, it was a cooking contest of sorts where we had volunteers make desserts and prizes for 3 different categories.

• Judges’ Favorite (basically the one they all agree on in terms of liking it the most)
• Crowd Favorite (attendees each got 2 tickets so they could pick their 2 favorite desserts and vote for it)
• Best-tasting Healthy Dessert (this was my doing because I kinda wanted to inspire people to think outside the box/realize that healthy desserts can be amazing too >_>)

The prizes I chose were $25 gift certificates to either Amazon or Kroger since I figured that would be the most practical (other than perhaps cold, hard cash) for anyone receiving it. :D They definitely seemed to go over well!

The entries included vegan pumpkin gingerbread vegan cupcakes, vegan pumpkin cookies with cinnamon buttercream frosting, cannolis, mango panna cotta, banana creme pies, spelt oatmeal raisin cookies, chocolate banana bread pudding, apricot tortes, vegan brownies, chocolate peanut butter rice krispies, raspberry red velvet trifles, oreo truffles, tiger stripe cookies, apple pie…

I was kinda worried that we wouldn’t have enough desserts (getting med students to participate in anything is pretty much always a struggle), so I made two things! Recipe adapted from here! Her version definitely looks a lot prettier; I mashed the bananas because I didn’t copy down the full recipe and thought that was what had to be done, har har.

I baked this up at Sean/Isaac’s place because I didn’t want to drive home to do it. He taste-tested a piece before I left.
S: …
F: …Oh no! Is it bad!?
S: Farrah, what have you done!? I want to eat the whole tray!
F: Oh, whew! But I need to bring this over right now! I’ll make more!?
S: Okay!!!

Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding

Ingredients:
-2 1/2 cups vanilla almond milk, unsweetened
-3 tbsp cornstarch
-1/4 cup light brown sugar
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
-1/4 tsp cinnamon
-1/4 tsp sea salt
-5 cups whole wheat bread, torn into 1-2 in. pieces
-2 extra-ripe bananas, mashed
-2 100 calorie Trader Joe milk chocolate bars, crushed

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 350.
2) Whisk together all but the last 3 ingredients in a large bowl. Add remaining ingredients, stir to combine, allowing the bread to absorb most of the liquid.
3) Scrape into prepared dish + press down to smooth the top.
4) Let sit 15 minutes so bread absorbs more liquid, then bake uncovered until lightly brown + firm (~30 minutes).
5) Serve warm!