A couple weeks prior to my birthday, I semi-seriously told S that if no other gift ideas could be conceived in time for the occasion, I’d be perfectly happy if he bought me a blender. In part because I’d wanted one for the longest time for utilisation in whipping up nut butters and smoothies, but hadn’t yet had heart to devote any part of my shopping budget to actually purchasing one. But he went and did it! Almost four weeks have passed since the fateful day I turned 25 and he (amongst other things, but that’s for another time) handed me a massive gift wrapped box enclosing a blender that he’d taken pains to research on and ensure was crowd-approved, and in that time I’ve had some variation of a smoothie for breakfast nearly every day and cranked out several jars of almond butter, homemade Nutella and hummus.

Now that we’re in blender era, one of my favourite weekend projects to date has been making myself smoothie bowls and taking some measure of pride in making it pretty with stuff I hustle from all over my pantry. After all, as evidenced by Instagram, when it comes to smoothie bowls the proof of the pudding is in the beauty of its top view. While concocting the fruit base blend is fairly nondescript, the toppings you add on top are the decorative embellishments to adorn the mystical canvas that is your smoothie bowl and quite literally its crowning glory. Following the rules don’t matter as much as breaking them, because it isn’t so much a blitzed up bowl of fruit as it is an outlet for creative expression. For inspiration, there are heaps of photos on Instagram exhibiting smoothie bowls topped with banana slices cut into heart shapes, edible flowers, and all manners of colourful edible paraphernalia. Otherwise, you could simply go the low fuss route of scooping things from jars into your bowl with no regard for order or innovation. Which is what I do most of the time, unless my smoothie bowl is to be Instagrammed.

The key thing to note about making smoothie bowls is that the recipe is highly customisable and lends itself well to colouring outside the lines - you can swop, add and eliminate ingredients as you fancy. I’m sharing how I make mine, but I wouldn’t call it a recipe as much as a skeletal roundup of the lowest common factors that every smoothie bowl is composed of. I’m sure your next door health and wellness guru could go on all day about the benefits of smoothie consumption, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re refreshing, fruity and fun as heck to make. 

Smoothie bowl base

1/2 cup of milk or yogurt | Need not necessarily be of the bovine variety, depending on your tolerance for or misinformed avoidance of lactose and animal by-products. I imagine almond milk or coconut yogurt would work well too.

1 cup of frozen fruit | Bananas highly recommended. Berries, figs, pink dragon fruit, mangoes optional. Avoid watery fruit like apples and oranges at all cost!!! 

A handful of ice cubes | Eyeball it and/or use rational judgement

A squeeze of honey | Omit if above mentioned fruit is deemed to be sufficiently diabetic

[Optional] 1 tbsp of superfood seeds or powders | Like chia, maca, cacao, acai and so forth

Toppings

Sliced and diced fruit | I’m looking at you, berries, kiwifruit and bananas.

Cereals | Granola, chia seeds, cacao nibs or pepitas.

Nut butter | Oh golly gumdrops this is my absolute favorite! Safe bets are peanut or almond butter, but you could even use Nutella. Don’t tell anyone I said that.

CHOCOLATE* | Again, don’t tell anyone I said that.

*I’m sort of kidding, but you could definitely add a dash of something chocolatey as desired.

Method

Ensure all your fruit is frozen so that your smoothie bowl base has the consistency of soft serve once blended - otherwise, your output will be watery and your toppings will sink when added.

Blend all the smoothie bowl ingredients then top with fruit, cereals and nuts or seeds. Or chocolate. Get outta here.