I had every intention of posting about healthy peanut butter snack bites today, but it’s just so warm and sunny (I’m writing this from a shady spot in my garden) that ice cream just seemed much more appropriate!
This is healthy ice cream though, so I’m on the same theme at least. Whilst trawling through Pintrest for summer recipe inspiration, this recipe, or at least variations of it, kept popping up. Just like whipped coconut cream before it, banana ice cream is the current trend in wholesome eating. I do enjoy being on trend…even though it happens almost never…so here’s my spin on it!
If you enjoy a banana based smoothie then you’re going to get on well with banana ice cream. It is pretty cool how pureeing frozen banana chunks in a blender turns it in to sweet and creamy soft serve ice cream, to which you can add pretty much whatever takes your fancy. I had strawberries and pistachios on hand, so that’s what was thrown in. Pictachios lend crunch, and strawberries bright, fresh sweetness. One piece of advice about the strawberries though, cut them smaller than I did if you plan to freeze the ice cream further. They freeze up much more solid than the banana making the ice cream difficult to scoop and eat. A fine dice would be perfect. If you want to serve the ice cream as it comes from the bender, in the soft serve form, just fold in any fruit/nut combination and size of your choice.
Other options could be toasted coconut and chocolate chips, peanut butter swirl, Nutella swirl (I need to make that variation now!) or you could add the strawberries to the blender and blitz them up with the banana. Ideally you would make this with banana alone, but my food processor couldn’t quite cope with that, it’s only a mini one, so I added half a cup of fat free yogurt to loosen the mixture up but it is optional.
Slice and freeze the banana the day before you want to make ice cream. If you make smoothies regularly you might have some stashed away in your freezer already…in which case you are very organised. Well done 🙂
As I mentioned, you’re blender or food processor may cope with all banana, if not add some yogurt.
Then you will end up with this beautifully smooth faux ice cream.
The added extras!
A handful of nuts just to make things pretty…and you’re done!
- 3 bananas
- 125ml plain or vanilla yogurt (optional), whichever yogurt you prefer to use is fine, I used fat free natural yogurt
- 100g strawberries, finely diced
- 50g pistachios, roughly chopped
- The evening before you plan to make the ice cream, peel and chop the three bananas. Place in a small bag or plastic tub and freeze overnight.
- Place the bananas in to a blender or food processor and pulse until they start to break down.
- Add inthe yogurt and blend until the mixture is smooth. Stop and scrape down the sides as required.
- When the mixture is smooth and has a consistency of soft serve ice cream, pour the contents of the blender in to a mixing bowl along with the strawberries and pistachios. Fold to combine.
- You can serve the ice cream at this stage or if you would prefer to freeze further, pour the mixture in to a freezer safe container and freeze for a couple of hours until solid.