I seem to be seeing little minions every where I look at the moment. They have popped up in the baking world over the past few months with the realise of the Despicable Me 2 movie being recently released.

Now I haven't actually watched the movie (shock horror) however I kept seeing all these cute little minions done as little cake pops or featuring on the front of birthday's cakes. I thought what about a healthy version? One which does not feature cake or too much sugar! See I can't help myself to healthifying everything. I thought these little fellas turned out pretty good for my first go. They are a little bit fiddly but worth the effort if it makes your kids eat something a little bit healthy. Now I know they don't exactly look like the real thing but if you squint your eyes and use your imagination a little bit they kind look like a minion!

So a break down of what makes up these little fellows. The body is made up of slices of bananas. Cut quite thinly. The white part of the eye is made up of frozen drops of yoghurt with a teeny bit of sultana plopped in the middle to make up the eyeball. I found these to defrost quite quickly so for a longer lasting alternative you could buy yoghurt drops (the hard kind) from your supermarket and add a dab of chocolate to make the eye ball or cut mini marshmallows in half and again add a dab of chocolate to make the eyeball. I used pieces of cucumber soaked in a bit of blue food colouring for the "overalls" and outlined the eyes, hair and facial features etc using melted chocolate.

Healthy Minions

by The Whimsical Wife

Prep Time: 45min to 1 hour

Cook Time: nil

Ingredients (makes 3 minions)

1/2 ripe banana, sliced into 3 even, flat slices.
1/4 cup greek yoghurt
1 x sultana snipped into tiny pieces
3 x pieces of peeled, finely sliced cucumber
1-2 tablespoons water
blue food colouring
12-14 chocolate buttons
Sub the homemade yoghurt drops with the storebought hard ones OR mini marshmallows cut in half

Instructions

Line a small tray with some baking paper. Place the greek yoghurt into a freezer bag and snip a small piece from the corner of the bag. By doing this you are creating a piping bag. Drop small round droplets of yoghurt onto the baking tray. You will end up with a leftovers which the kids can eat later.

Place the small pieces of sultana into the center yoghurt drops. Place the tray into the freezer for 30 minutes or until the droplets are frozen.

Meanwhile cut the pieces of cucumber into rectangular shapes. Place them in a small container along with 1-2 tablespoons of water and 1-2 drops of blue food colouring. Let it sit in the water for a few minutes to soak up the colouring. Remove and place on a piece of paper towell to remove any excess moisture.

Place the chocolate buttons into a freezer bag and place inside a microwavable safe cup. Place in the microwave for 30 second bursts until the chocolate is completely melted.

Place the banana pieces on a plate and add the cucumber slices on top. Add the frozen yoghurt eyes.

Snip a small piece off the corner of the freezer bag to create another piping bag. Pipe around the eyes and create glasses, add facial features, hair and straps to the overalls.

Serve immediately.

They're pretty cute aren't they even if they don't look like the real thing! :-)