Healthy caramel protein slice

Even personal trainers will love this healthy caramel slice

One thing you might hear from fitness trainers or health professionals is to up the protein in your diet. Protein helps build and maintain muscle mass, oxygenate the body, and create new blood cells. These important physiological processes weren’t typically associated with an indulgent caramel slice until now. We’ve swapped flour for rolled oats to create that iconic crispy base and added sweetness with sugar-free maple syrup and gold potatoes. Banana and cashew butter provide the fudgy texture for the filling, which is given its signature butterscotch flavour from caramel protein powder. Melted sugar-free chocolate chips provide the shiny top. Keep this gluten- and sugar-free vegan salted caramel slice in the freezer for an after-school snack, work or workout pick-me-up or serve it up as a better-for-you dessert.

What goes into making this caramel oat slice?

Sweet potato provides the base for our dairy-free caramel slice. Rich in fibre, sweet potato is also low GI, which, along with protein, helps keep you feeling fuller for longer. By cooking the sweet potato in just a small amount of water, its antioxidant properties are still intact whereas roasting decreases them. Cook the sweet potato until a knife or skewer inserted into a piece has no resistance. We need it to be soft enough so that it can be mashed to a puree. After mashing, give it a good whisk to ensure there are no lumps.

Coles Perform Salted Caramel Plant Protein Powder uses a combination of brown rice, yellow pea and fava beans for protein, and cocoa powder and pink salt for flavour. When making a banana bread, you need your bananas to be overripe, but in our protein caramel slice you don’t want the flavour to be that intense. You only need the banana to be ripe enough to mash. It enhances the sweet caramel taste and adds moisture. Oats do double duty in our healthy caramel slice recipe. They give the base structure and, when blended, they add to the creamy texture of the filling. 

Are there any twists to this recipe?

To change the flavour profile, you can use vanilla protein powder in the filling and swap the dark chocolate for sugar-free white chocolate chips. Cashew butter is the sweetest of the nut butters, which is why we use it in our banana and caramel slice, but you could also use peanut or almond butters. If you want to up the protein even more, try sprinkling with hemp seeds.

Tips on melting sugar-free chocolate

We use sugar-free dark chocolate chips to top our healthy vegan caramel slice. Although generally made from cocoa powder, vegetable fat and alternative sugar, these chips can still seize like regular chocolate, so care needs to be taken when melting them. If melting in the microwave as we have done, heat in 30-second increments and stir in between. Alternatively, place a small heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Don’t let the bowl touch the water. Add the chips to the bowl and turn the heat off. Stir occasionally until smooth. In either case, use metal or silicone utensils to stir the chocolate. Wood utensils can retain moisture which will cause the chocolate to seize and go lumpy.

How can you serve this caramel protein slice?

We cut our banana caramel slice into eight pieces, which gives a solid-sized piece for a dessert. You can cut it into smaller pieces for a bite-size snack that can be nibbled on when you feel you need an energy boost. If serving for a celebration, our caramel slice with rolled oats base is firm enough to hold candles or it can be sprinkled with tiny edible flowers or served with a dollop of dairy-free ice cream.