Chocolate Banana Paleo Protein Bars

I've decided that each Saturday I am going to post a couple of my favorite Paleo recipes made during the previous week. This week I made 2 amazing things, the first of which is Chocolate Banana Protein Bars.

Since going Paleo, I don't miss bread at all (shocking, as i really thought I would), and I rarely crave sweets, but with all of the running I'm doing, what I crave is fuel. As the mileage gets longer, my desire for a protein bar gets stronger. Not to mention, protein bars are a great snack post-run because they're easy on the stomach and so dense with nutrients. So I took to the Internet and started searching for a recipe for a protein bar I could easily make at home. I found a few possibilities, and chose the following recipe for two reasons: I love chocolate, and I already had all of the ingredients in the house.

I found the recipe on an old blog that doesn't seem to be updated anymore, and the recipe itself was incomplete and had no instructions or nutritional information, so I played around with it a bit, and this is the final product. It is more like a brownie than a protein bar, so my search is not over yet. But hey, a chocolate Paleo snack with less than 100 calories per serving, 4.3g of fat, 9.3g carbs, and 5.3g of protein? I'll take it!

Ingredients
1/2 cup almond flour
2 tbsp coconut flour
1 tbsp ground flax seed
3 scoops Vi Shape shake mix (or other protein powder)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp almond butter
2 tbsp honey
2 mashed bananas
2 eggs

Procedure
Preheat oven to 350. Line an 8x8 square baking pan with parchment paper. Mix all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and set aside. In a separate bowl, combine almond butter and honey. I quickly zapped them in the microwave for 10 seconds to soften them up for mixing. Add mashed bananas and eggs, mix thoroughly. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir. My product looked, and smelled, like chocolate cake batter at this point. After closer examination, it tasted like chocolate cake batter too!!

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 16-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, remove from pan (with parchment) and cool completely on wire rack. Remove parchment and slice into 16 small bars.

Nutritional Info (per bar)
Calories 95.3, Total fat 4.3g, Cholesterol 26.7mg, Sodium 41.9mg, Potassium 111.8mg, Carbohdrates 9.3g (Dietary Fiber 2.7g, Sugars 4.1g), Protein 5.3g.