If you're on Pinterest, I'm sure you've seen the frozen banana "ice cream" pin by now. If you're not on Pinterest or have never made this frozen confection before I highly recommend that you promptly fix both of those things. Pinterest will make your life better, it will. And you can eat this dessert for breakfast. Case closed.
I was delightfully surprised by how satisfying this simple dessert is. The original pin shows frozen bananas being placed in a blender and then whipped into a fluffy cloud. Well, my blender is broken and I didn't want to bother with freezing the bananas anyway. So, I simply sliced ripe bananas and whipped them with my handheld immersion blender until they were a fluffy cloud. It worked very nicely. So, if you don't feel like freezing the bananas or don't want to add stress to your machine by blending frozen bananas I say skip that step.
A few things about this "ice cream". First, it's not ice cream. Don't even try to pretend it is or sell it to your kids that way. That being said it is delicious! It's in a category of it's own. If it's late at night and you need something sweet you can indulge in this treat and be just as satisfied as you would be eating ice cream but actually still feel good after eating it. Really, it's that good. But that brings me to my second point, you have to like bananas. It's made with bananas so it's going to taste like bananas. I love bananas. I've seen pinners comment that you can "mask" the banana taste with the other ingredients but I don't see how that's possible or why you'd even want to. Just eat something else. See, lots of bananas in there.
Okay. Want to make some? Here's what you do.
Gather
Four ripened bananas, sliced into 1/2" pieces
1-2 tspns of high quality dutch process cocoa or to taste. If you're gluten free just be sure your cocoa powder is too. You can omit this.
2-3 tbspns peanut butter or to taste, I used an all natural, unsweetened peanut butter because i felt like it would offer a creamier texture. If you've ever tried to melt regular peanut butter and pour it on ice cream you know how it freezes solid? I was trying to avoid that. It worked. Of course, you can omit the peanut butter too.
Blend all of your ingredients together in a blender, food processor or in a bowl with an immersion blender until light and fluffy like a cloud. Place in a freezer proof container large enough to hold a pint. Freeze for several hours. Done!
You'll have to allow it to thaw for a little bit before you can scoop it but the texture of mine was like gelato! So perfect. I can't wait to make this again. I'm going to be adding cinnamon and more peanut butter for sure next time but the add in possibilities are endless! Rum and raisins (not blended, obvs.)? Shredded coconut? If you're looking at bananas on your counter right now that are about to turn, you know what to do. Enjoy!
xo
Spidey
