So I had all these very ripe bananas and it was too hot to make…you know what. That thing we all make when we have the overripe bananas. So I searched the interwebz for some alternatives and came across a post called One-Ingredient Ice Cream at thekitchn.com. Take a banana, cut it into slices, freeze the slices and puree in a food processor. Ta da! You have something very like ice cream with no cream or ice cream maker required. Although this has a beautiful simplicity, it’s a little too simple for my taste, so I decided to tweak it a little.
Here are the ingredients I used in my “ice cream”:
- 4 bananas, very ripe
- 2 tablespoons half-and-half (optional)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- pinch of kosher salt
Making this “ice cream” felt like a double-dog dare. I started with the basic recipe from kitchn. First I sliced 4 bananas and placed them on a cookie sheet which I then froze for 2 hours.
Then I put the frozen banana slices in a food processor and let’er rip!
After processing and scraping the bowl for about a minute, I grew impatient and added 2 tablespoons of half-and-half to speed the process along. And because most sweet tastes better with salt, I added a pinch of kosher salt.
After I added the half-and-half, it turned creamy pretty fast. In fact, I could have stopped there, but vanilla pairs really well with just about everything so I added a 1/2 teaspoon of that. Mmmmm that’s better.
So now I had plain lowfat banana “ice cream.” Plain? Lowfat? Dessert? That doesn’t sound right. What would really be good is if this was sweeter and richer, so in goes 1 tablespoon of honey and 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter.
One last puree and ahhhh. Now that is good. 
You can eat it right away as soft serve, or put it into a container and freeze it until it’s hard.
And it’s good…but not sinfully good, which is really how I prefer my dessert. It is much improved with the addition of Hot Fudge and salted peanuts.
EPILOGUE
A couple of days ago, I tried this again, but a simpler version. Just frozen banana slices pureed. The process was hurried along with the addition of some Hot Fudge and then when that wasn’t chocolatey enough, some cocoa powder.
The result? The look and mouthfeel was very much like ice cream. Although still not as sinful as I would like, this dessert met with accolades from my two daughters. No doubt, this is a great recipe for making a last minute kid-pleasing “healthy” dessert.
MORE VARIATIONS (mix and match or create some new ones)
- Add 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder
- Leave out the peanut butter
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
- Right before the final freeze, fold in peanuts, cookies, banana chips, toffee, chocolate or whatever
- Leave out anything you don’t like or can’t eat…except the bananas.