Recipe: Vegan Banana & Chocolate Ice-Cream
- The Honest Project
- Jun 17, 2016
- 3 min read
It's not gone unnoticed, by myself included, that my Euros inspired match day recipes have a certain super bowl flavour about them. If there is any sporting event that is as much about the food spread as it is the sport, it's the super bowl. So I'll stick with the US super bowl theme, for today anyway, and bring you this very easy recipe for banana and chocolate ice cream.
The good news is that you don't need an ice cream maker to make this ice cream. The food processor and the freezer do all the work for you. It's a very well known secret by now that frozen bananas are the key to making homemade vegan ice-cream. Don't freeze the bananas whole, or even worse, don't freeze them with their skins on. A close friend (...ahem) did this once and it turned out a disaster! Instead, peel the bananas, slice them, bag them and pop them in the freezer. My freezer always has a few bags of frozen banana slices in it for when an ice-cream craving arises. On that note, my fridge always has a few tins of full fat coconut milk in it to for when some coconut cream is needed.
Just a little aside before I get to the recipe. As regular Honest Project readers will know, I'm all about preparing my food from scratch and do so most of the time. However, there are some amazing food products on the market that often find a space in my shopping basket. One of these is Nobo Ice-Cream which is (in my opinion) hands down one of the best Irish food products on the market. It's naturaly free from dairy, gluten and refined sugar and comes in a number of different flavours, all of which are pretty amazing. I think the salted caramel is my favourite though. If you look at the ingredient list, it is made with ingredients such as avocado, coconut, lemon juice etc.; all ingredients that I know and would happily eat in their own right. They don't use flavourings, gums, stabilisers or refined sugars or (as they say themselves) 'any ingredient you can't pronounce'. So if you don't fancy making my Honest Project Banana and Chocolate Ice Cream (tut tut :)), check out the Nobo range, next time you are in the shops.
If you do fancy giving my recipe a go, it takes about 5 minutes prep time and an hour freezing time. This recipe serves 4-6.
Ingredients
4 medium to large ripe bananas*, peeled, sliced and frozen
1 tin of full fat coconut (refrigerated for at least 6 hours)
4 tbsp raw cacao powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp of sea salt
*riper bananas make for a sweeter ice cream.
Method
1. Add the frozen banana slices to a food processor. You may have to break them up a little.
2. Open the tin of coconut milk. The coconut milk will have hardened at the top of the tin. Scoop the hardened coconut milk into the food processor. Set aside the coconut water left at the end of the tin for another purpose as it's not required in this recipe.
3. Add the raw cacao powder, vanilla extract and sea salt to the food processor.
4. Pulse in ten second intervals at the beginning to break down the frozen banana. Once broken down, turn on the food processor for a minute to allow the mixture to become really creamy. Once done, spoon into a container and return to the freezer to set. If you like a creamy ice cream, this recipe requires only an hour in the freezer. If you like your ice cream, more frozen, leave it in the freezer for at least three hours.
5. Serve with toasted nuts or fresh berries.
