Banana Ice Cream

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My favorite new dessert is banana ice cream. I love it because it's quick, healthy (and cheaper than vegan ice cream), and -- most important -- delicious.

"Never interrupt me when I'm eating a banana"
-Ryan Stiles

Despite the ridiculous ads I've seen lately (and, unfortunately, I have noticed at least once that Google ads below my own blog have chosen this idiotic ad), bananas are not bad for you. The idea of saying you should avoid bananas because they have more calories per bite is like saying you shouldn't go outside at all because, if you stay out for 8 hours straight with no sunblock, you'll get a sunburn. If you were to dry the "low calorie" fruits until you get the same amount of fiber per bite as bananas, the sugar content would be much higher (Sass). The health benefits for bananas are fantastic (Golb), they're cheap, and convenient.


Best of all, you can use them to make an incredibly easy ice cream recipe!


I got this recipe from Faith Durand's blog, and have been playing around with it.


The basics are easy:

1. Slice up a few bananas: about 5 or 6.
2. Toss them on a plate and stick it in the freezer.
3. Remove in three hours.
4. Toss in a food processor and blend until creamy.
5. Serve!

           


 The recipe is tasty without modification, but I can never resist playing around with recipes.


First experiment: açai. Follow all the above steps, except add in some açai powder. I liked the flavor but the powder was grainy and made the ice cream, to my taste, unpleasant. Since the health benefits are unproven, associated with a lot of scams, and the product is overpriced, I'd prefer blueberries anyway.

I paid how much for this gunk?

Second experiment: mixed berry. This took a tiny bit extra effort. First, I blended the banana and scooped it into a bowl. Then I blended I blended some frozen mixed berries. Next, I poured the banana into the food processor and blended together. I found the taste much improved over the grainy powdered açai powder texture. However, this time, the little seeds from the raspberries were too crunchy and made the ice cream texture unpleasant. Next time I'll follow my initial instinct and use blueberries.
    

Third experiment: peanut butter and chocolate. I just tossed in cocoa powder and peanut butter until it looked right. This was by far tastier, however it made the already-soft-serve ice cream even softer, so it was closer to thick milkshake consistency. I solved this by putting the bowl in the freezer and stirring it every 15 minutes for about an hour. I also tried sunflower butter, which tasted just as good and is a nice option for people with allergies.

Fourth experiment: chocolate-carob. I just used instinct on amounts, but if I measured it would be about 2t cocoa and 1t carob. The natural sugar in bananas wasn't quite enough to make the chocolate taste good to me, so I added agave nectar. That caused the same problem as above, and had the same solution. A better solution would be to add stevia powder as sweetener.

Last updated: 21 Feb. 2012

References

• Duran, Faith. How To Make Creamy Ice Cream With Just One Ingredient. theKitchn. Web. 12 May 2011.
• Golb. 6 Awesome Health Benefits of Bananas. Nutrition and Diet. Web. 26 Jun. 2007.
• Sass, Cynthia. Are bananas fattening? Shine: Healthy Living. Web. 22 May 2008.