Recipe of the Month: Banana Ice Cream

From GRP skier Adam Martin.

Transforming a few humble bananas into this frozen confection is as intriguing as it is satiating. Isolating this common smoothie ingredient elevates the end product into a luscious, creamy blend with soft serve like consistency. Sometimes referred to as “nice cream”, it’s great by itself, but I’m including instructions for chocolate topping which brings it to another level. This recipe makes 2 big-enough-satisfy servings.

Ingredients:
4 - 5 ripe medium bananas

Chocolate Topping:
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup canned full fat coconut milk

1. Peel the bananas and break into small pieces. Place the banana pieces in an airtight bag or tupperware and freeze overnight or longer.

Look for bananas that have at least a few brown spots on the peel. I used vegan chocolate chips which are made with cocoa butter instead of milk fat.

2. Blend/process the frozen banana pieces in a blender or food processor. Puree and whip the blend until it is completely smooth.

If you are using a blender, you may need to add some milk (or plant milk) to coax the pieces into blending, but try using as little as possible. I have found that using only bananas yields the richest end product.

3. Place the nice cream in the freezer to keep cold while you prepare the chocolate topping. You can keep it there a couple of hours if you mix it every 45 minutes or so, but eventually it will freeze solid.

4. Combine the chocolate chips and coconut milk in a microwave safe container. Heat in 20 - 30 second intervals, stirring vigorously in between, until the mixture is smooth.

5. Remove the banana soft serve from the freezer, drizzle with warm chocolate topping, and dig in right away before it melts.

This portion is about 3 frozen bananas worth of nice cream.

Why does this work?
There are many factors that contribute to our perception of ice cream, but ice crystal size plays a key role in how we perceive creaminess: very small crystals yield a smooth treat. In traditional ice cream, eggs act as a binder keeping the mixture emulsified and impeding ice crystal growth. Furthermore, most store-bought ice creams also contain one or more stabilizers like guar gum or locust bean gum which work in the same way.

This article points to high levels of pectin in bananas to explain why nice cream becomes so creamy. Basically, blending bananas produces long pectin chains which act as a natural, built-in stabilizer, hinder ice crystal growth, and yield a lusciously smooth soft serve.