Nice cream. Almost a health blogger's right of passage. I had seen nice cream for years on the internet and those who posted about it made it look as if it was as simple as quickly blending some bananas then hey presto, you have a healthier alternative to ice cream. I was mistaken. It's not as simple as that - far from it - and it has taken me a few months of tinkering to get it right, so for those who have never ventured into the fashionable world of frozen bananas equating dessert, I thought I'd try my best to help you and hopefully make the process a little less confusing than I found it.
The ingredients you will need (per person):
- 3 very ripe medium bananas. Fewer bananas than this and you might as well not bother as it won't make enough... in my *eats-ice cream-by-the-pint* opinion.
- 3 large (or 4 smaller) frozen strawberries. Any more and it will not only thin the mixture but the strawberry flavour will be too overpowering. You want to strike the right balance between the two fruit.
- 3 tablespoons of the milk of your choice (I use semi-skimmed).
You will also need a powerful blender. I recently bought a NutriBullet (here) for the sole purpose of making nice cream. What they don't really tell you online is that blenders need a certain amount of liquid to make stuff blend; whereas everyone makes it look as if you could drop solid stone into the thing and produce water. You need liquid of some sort to allow it to blend, especially if you want to blend frozen bananas. But the problem with too much liquid for nice cream is that it will make it runny and more like a milkshake than ice cream. You want this as thick as possible and after a lot of trial and error, 3 tablespoons works the best, for me at least.
Lastly, I just wanted to share a point about the ripeness of the bananas. Whilst I am sure many people reading this post will say they loose all their nutrients when they are too ripe, they need to be ripe for two reasons: 1. They are sweeter the riper they get. 2. It will make them easier to blend as they will be softer. With all that spiel out of the way, now onto the method:
- Naturally, before anything, you will need to freeze your bananas. Slice them first (you don't have to do it too thinly) and put the circles into a sandwich bag then pop it in the freezer and leave for at least 8 hours, or until the bananas are in a solid block.
- At least 20 minutes before you want to make your nice cream, take them out of the freezer and leave them in a place that is at least room temperature until the bananas have softened around the edges.
- While they are still in the sandwich bag, you will need to break up the bananas into smaller chunks - you don't need to bother separating them into their original slices though. You then want to put the chunks in the blender cup, along with the milk, and start blending.
- Like my advice for TSW, give this bit plenty of time and don't expect it to be done in seconds. This will take a little while. Every minute or so, stop the blender and give the mix a hard shake. Patience is a virtue with this and your objective is to make the mixture as thick as possible, but if you've left the bananas out of the freezer for at least 20 minutes, then you should be fine. You simply can't put solid bananas in the blender and expect miracles.
- When the mix has nearly fully blended, add in your strawberries. I'd suggest getting the strawberries out of the freezer for about five minutes before adding to the blender. It's all about creating the balance between the fruit being soft enough, but not too soft...
- When the mixture has blended fully, just go to town and eat all your hard work. You can do what I did in the picture and transfer it to a pretty glass, but let's be real, I've never done that before in my life and I usually just guzzle it straight from the NutriBullet cup. No judgement here.
Nice cream is really quite amazing and even though I already loved bananas, I was skeptical that when frozen they could turn into creamy ice cream, but somehow they do. Let's take a moment to thank the mighty banana for this absolute boon of nature.
Right, I have just bought some cacao power so I'm off to see if I can make chocolate nice cream and really blow my mind.
Enjoy.
Cara x
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