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Sunday 3 June 2012

Healthy ice-cream? Have a banana.


You might remember my experiments with making my own ice-cream. Now, making your own ice-cream is all very well, but it makes you painfully aware just how much double cream you're consuming in every scoop. Sometimes, knowing exactly what's in your food isn't as comforting as it should be.

See that creamy strawberry ice-cream, above? It's delicious. And look at this! Chocolate ice-cream! That can't be good for me, can it? So how is it that since I started eating bowlfuls of the stuff, I've lost half a stone?


My children love my home-made ice-cream, too. But I'll let you into a secret - what you're looking at in both these pictures is just a bowl of fruit.

This isn't one of those 'healthier options', like courgette muffins, where you add some grated courgette to the usual butter and sugar and get to feel a bit smug. This is the real deal. It's a genius idea from Jill Dupleix's Lighten Up cookbook, which is rapidly becoming my constant companion.
Ingredients for strawberry ice-cream
6 firm ripe bananas (my bananas weren't firm at all. It didn't matter.)
150g berries (strawberries, raspberries - my colleague used redcurrants with great success)

Ingredients for chocolate ice-cream
8 ripe bananas
2 tbsp cocoa powder, sifted

Chop the fruit and freeze for about three hours. (Don't freeze it solid, or you'll nearly break your food processor). Take it out of the freezer and, if you're making chocolate ice-cream, add the cocoa powder. Whizz. (I only have a mini-chopper, because I am not grown-up enough to own a food-processor.)


Pile back into a plastic tub and freeze overnight.
 And that's it. It's just bananas. But for some reason, it doesn't taste like just bananas. I'm a convert.

Jill Dupleix suggests sprinkling chopped chocolate and cherries on the chocolate ice-cream, and serving the berry ice-cream with sponge figure biscuits. We just eat it by the scoop, with a few blueberries thrown on top if we're very lucky.


32 comments:

  1. Do you think my banana hater would rumble me? He's a frozen grape-a-holic though. Looks good.

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    1. My mother in law turned her nose up, and she hates bananas. So I'm not promising anything.

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  2. This looks delicious. And healthy.
    A controlled experiment is needed with my kids I think. They will never expect this supreme level of healthy food from their father so there will be no placebo effect. I may have to add chilli powder to the chocolate one (most of my chocolate-based baking includes this) or they will suspect something is up.

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  3. OK. Going to have to try this.

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  4. Got to try this! The advantage is that I hate bananas so it will stop me eating it! (Honestly I can sniff out bananas in things at twenty paces). Excuse me, but I now need to go buy bananas...

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    1. What is it with the banana haters? How can there be so many?

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  5. There's definitely a texture thing going on with frozen bananas that you don't expect, the first time you freeze them. I've been freezing bananas as lollies for a while.

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  6. ...If only I liked bananas...! (Am very frustrated! Having read the other responses perhaps there should be Banana-hating-club? I do like Two Wednesday's idea though...)

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  7. I love bananas! and so do my children, in fact I wonder if in fact they are monkeys, the amount we get through. off to stick some in the freezer right now!!!!!

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  8. lady.. you are the answer to my vegan icecream woes... i salute you..

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  9. No freezer here...I too have one of those mini-choppers.

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  10. Mmhhh, I'm Italian.... That would be chocolate AND banana ice cream to me.... Nothing wrong with that BUT you have to call a spade a spade!!!

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  11. Really? I would love to lose half a stone - well, several half stones. But then I don't really eat ice cream anyway so - hmm. Still, you may have persuaded me.

    What you said in the previous post about penpals - yes! I was always the one who went on writing, long after my pp had given up. My theory is that bloggers who keep on blogging are all kids whose penpals gave up on them but they went on hopefully sending letters out. And now we've all found one another. Hooray!

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  12. That looks terrific. I've made the pseudo icecream with just plain banana before and loved it too. With strawberries or cocoa sounds delicious.

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    1. Thank goodness, I was beginning to think I was the only person in the world who would eat the stuff.

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  13. You've sprung open a window onto a new world of possibilities. I will definitely try it as soon as I get my hands on bananas.
    I am quite shocked by how many banana haters there are ... they're delish.

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    1. They are freaks, that's what they are. Though don't tell them I said so.

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  14. I love these recipes and know children will devour this, just as they do ice-cream (but minus all the nasties). Great post and pics, thanks!

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  15. Bl**dy Nora! Actually really? This is culinary genius. Thankyou xxx

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  16. Why has no-one ever told me this before? Off to buy bananas first thing in the morning!!

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  17. We've been doing this since way back when we were hip young vegans in love. It's a HUGE hit with the kids!

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  18. ...three...work top, dead basil & coffee! (but you can have all the bananas!)

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  19. I have just received the book today after reading your post-isn't it brilliant?! I did for some reason thank Sue at Quince Tree instead of you for the recommendation. Have just finished making the spinach dhal to take camping and it is awesome. Verrrry spicy and yummy.

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  20. Hello. Apparently it is the fat content of the bananas that gives it the creaminess. However I have never tried it with strawberries. I will now though. I too love ice cream and hubby bought me a maker but as I was pouring in all the double cream my waist band got tighter. Jo x

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  21. What a superb idea. I'll definitely try this one. Thank you.
    Love from Mum
    xx

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