$5 Friday: Weetbix banana cake

Do you struggle to find healthy lunchbox snacks?  This is a recipe to use up leftover Weetbix and bananas and transform them into something that is lunchbox friendly.  It is simple and easy to bake, plus incredibly frugal and also very yummy.  On occasion when running late I eat this myself for breakfast.

My kids love eating Weetbix (being a frugalista we eat ALDI’s Golden Vale Wheat Biscuits rather than the Weetbix brand).  But they always leave the broken bits at the bottom.  preferring only the nice ‘bricks’.  They also love bananas in for fruit break, but they won’t eat any bananas that are a bit old.  Many people would throw out these leftovers, but not me. I save packets of leftover Weetbix crumbs and keep them until needed.  And I freeze old ‘black’ bananas whole.  When I need them I take them out of the freezer, cut away the skins, mash them and then make them into something nice.  Like this.

I made this into a square cake so that it was easy to cut into pieces for school lunches. You could also bake it in a bread machine, which would allow it to do the mixing for you. Or you could be fancy and top with a lemon cream cheese icing. I sprinkled mini M & Ms on top of mine, which was part of our extensive haul from Halloween trick or treating (I’m hidden treasure stash as there is enough sugar to fuel my kids for a year).

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of wheat biscuit crumbs
2 cups self-raising flour
2 medium bananas, mashed
2 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup rice bran or other vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup desiccated coconut
M &Ms or other leftover Halloween chocolate to top

Method

1. In a medium sized bowl combine the wheat biscuits with the milk and allow to combine for a little while until soft (it does take long).
2. Mash the bananas and add them to the wheat biscuit mixture.  Beat in the eggs, then the sugar, flour, coconut, oil and milk.
3. Pour into a greased lamington slice square tin and smooth the top.  Sprinkle with M & Ms or chopped mini chocolates.  Bake at around 170C for around 20 minutes.

Total cost (based on ALDI):

Wheat biscuit crumbs – leftovers $0
Self raising flour – 15c
Bananas – leftovers or $1
Eggs (free in my case as gifted) – 60c
Sugar – 10c
Oil – 15c
Milk – 12c
Coconut – 20c
M & Ms etc – Halloween leftovers, free

Total:  $2.32