Name: Vegan Black Forest Protein Smoothie Bowl
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Ingredients: 1 Banana (peeled); 1 tbsp Protein Powder; 6 Cherries (fresh or frozen (stoned)); 2 tsp Cacao Powder (or use vegan cocoa powder); 2 teaspoon Maple Syrup (optional, or your liquid sweetener of choice); ½ cup Plant based drink (Soy, almond, hazelnut or coconut, plain, of your choice); 1 cup Ice

Vegan Cherry protein smoothie bowl recipe. I thought I would share a simple recipe that is perfect for using up your summer fruits, even during these cold winter months.

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How Do You Make A Smoothie Bowl?
Customise your Smoothie Bowl!
📋 Recipe
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The onset of summer always fills me with a strong desire to go fruit picking, those glossy red berries seemingly symbolising everything wonderful about the summer, and reminding us of eating raw berries with stained fingers when we were children.

Unfortunately, the shelf life of soft berries is as transitory as the season itself and unless you know people who will gratefully accept jars and jars of jams, you may find yourself throwing out berries that have grown grey fur coats out to the birds (they're not as picky as us humans).

Fortunately, it is really easy to freeze fruits, you just need to lay them out flat on a baking sheet in the freezer for a day or so, before bagging up. By freezing in this way, you're left with whole fruits that haven't been crushed by other freezer hogging fruits that are demanding their own space in the bag.
The recipes I'm sharing today is really simple but dazzingly delicious, perfect for quenching your thirst AND your appetite: my Black Forest Smoothie.

My Black Forest Smoothie Bowl using Herbalife's Nutrition Vegan Protein Mix

I love to use my favourite brand of vegan smoothie powder, Herbalife's Nutrition Vegan Protein Mix. Of course, you can use your own favourite powder, but this one is particularly good, packed full of vitamins, and will keep you full throughout the morning. I also add cacao or cocoa powder (depending on which I have in the cupboard), banana, some cherries (or any red berry of your choice) and a little maple syrup to sweeten.

How Do You Make A Smoothie Bowl?

Simple! You just blend up your smoothie ingredients, pour them into the bowl of your choice, and then add toppings:

sliced fruit
cacao nibs
coconut
nuts or seeds
drizzle of maple syrup
yogurt

And of course, you can just drink as a regular smoothie if you'd prefer!

Customise your Smoothie Bowl!

a smoothie bowl with cherries and chocolate

Use any berries you want. I used cherries in this one, because, Black Forest, but a combination of frozen blueberries and strawberries (which particularly benefit from the baking sheet method of freezing) but raspberries, loganberries, blackberries or currants would be just as good.
Feel free to omit the chocolate if you just want to enjoy that fruity flavour instead. It gives you a feeling of having grasped onto a fleeting moment of the summer when, in reality, in the midst of winter, you've extracted a bag of frosty berries from the freezer.

I have been experimenting with freezing various fruits and then blending them to see what is achieved and the most successful thing was this chilly drink. The banana isn't obligatory and if you enjoy the tartness that some early season berries carry, then you'll love this. If, like me, you have a sweet tooth that constantly needles your pancreas, then the banana adds a natural sweetness as well as a definite creaminess and makes this drink more like a milk-shake than a healthy drink. Always a winner in my book if the health aspect is downplayed.

📋 Recipe