How to turn past-their-best bananas into a glorious ice-cream – recipe
With two young kids, we get through a lot of bananas in our household. Perhaps surprisingly, though, most of them are frozen: our daughters eat them straight from the freezer most evenings, with frozen berries and yoghurt, for pudding. We normally order a stack of bananas every Saturday, and before the end of the week …
At this point, we peel, slice and freeze them for the children’s evening yoghurt, though sometimes, when we have a real excess, I turn them into today’s incredibly satisfying “ice-cream”. Its silky-smooth texture really hits the spot, and satisfies any ice-cream cravings without recourse to added sugar or excessive fat. The trick is to freeze the bananas in a single layer on a flat tray, so they don’t freeze into a homogeneous mass, then transfer to a container to enjoy as and when.
Brown banana ‘ice-cream’
This has to be in my top five everyday desserts, not least because brown bananas are very gooey and sweet, have a rich and creamy texture and a satiating flavour.
Portion for portion, it feels luxurious and indulgent, even without the extra sugar, saturated fat, gums and stabilisers found in much commercial ice-cream and other ready-made desserts. Of course, blended fruit is itself a readily absorbable sugar, but the trade-off is worth it for the extra fibre, potassium, manganese and other vitamins.
It’s also a fraction of the price of shop-bought ice-cream. This is best eaten fresh from the blender, but if you need to store a bumper batch, remember to take it out of the freezer at least 10 minutes before you want to scoop it.
1 or more brown bananas
Half the bananas’ weight in liquid – water, yoghurt, milk or a plant-based alternative
Grated chocolate
Peel and chop the bananas into 2cm-thick slices (this makes them easier to blend later), then spread out on a tray and freeze for at least five hours. Once frozen, store in a sealed container in the freezer.
To make the ice-cream, weigh the amount of banana you’ve taken out, then add half its weight in liquid – that is, water, yoghurt, milk or a plant-based alternative. Transfer to a jug blender and blitz smooth, but not for too long or the fruit will melt too much; stir, if need be, to get an even blend. Serve immediately as it is, or leave to soften like a Mr Whippy-alike soft serve, or freeze for an hour or more for a firmer, scoopable texture, adding any optional toppings of your choice.