A few weeks ago, Jonny and I were preparing to head out of town for the weekend. Because we normally shop for groceries at the very beginning of the week, it is not uncommon by Friday afternoon to have more than a few neglected browning bananas in the fruit bowl. At the risk of returning Sunday evening to a hoard of fruit flies, Jonny’s roommate Jared suggested cutting the bananas up and throwing them in the freezer for a future baking endeavor. As a firm believer of not wasting food, I promptly peeled, cut, and froze those bananas.
Now, many weeks later, the phrase “out of site, out of mind” seems appropriate. In the midst of our summer classes and my GRE studying, defrosting old bananas and baking bread was not, to say the least, a top priority of ours. However, when Jared was freezing his batch of over-ripe bananas a few nights ago, we decided that it a was time to do some experimenting!
In my recent food blog scanning, I have seen many a post about the amazing “one ingredient ice cream” that is both healthy and delicious. Not imaging that anything healthy could mimic the deliciousness that is rich and creamy ice cream, I had not yet tried any of the recipes. But a few pulses in the food processor later, my hard frozen banana transformed into a creamy, soft-serve consistency banana ice cream! The rough recipe we followed can be found at The Kitchn. They have good visual instructions and a long list of add-in ideas for different ice cream flavors.
Get the Recipe Here
In addition to the 3 frozen roughly chopped bananas, I added a big tablespoon of peanut butter, a few raw almonds, and a few semi-sweet chocolate chips. I love the nutty texture of natural organic peanut butter, it’s so much better than the artificially smooth feel of peanut butter that has added ingredients to prevent separation. I just give the peanut butter a good stir and store it in the fridge, problem solved.
Anyway, the bananas magically became crumbly then mushy, then smooth and creamy! It had more of a soft serve consistency, but I’m sure you could put the mixture back into the freezer for a few hours for a more ice-cream-like texture if you prefer. The banana flavor is not overpowering, but provided enough sweetness that I didn’t feel the need to add any additional sweetener.
I am converted and may now even buy bananas and let them over-ripen on purpose in order to make this healthy and delicious dessert!
The Epicuric Method 