Raw Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

Since we’re enjoying a late summer here in the UK, I thought it would be fitting to show one of our current favourite desserts … raw chocolate banana ice cream.

It’s so simple to make… even simpler if you’ve got a food processor 😉

You simply slice some very ripe bananas and place them in a freezer bag overnight.

Place the banana slices in the food processor, along with some raw cacao powder (regular cocoa powder will work fine too) and a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract. I also add a teaspoon of virgin coconut oil to make the ice cream even creamier.

Whizz in the processor until it’s nice and smooth*. Add a little natural liquid sweetener to taste (I use agave syrup) and some cacao nibs or choc chips if desired. Pulse a few times to combine and then it’s ready to go!

* Before I had the food processor, I used to pulse the ingredients in my blender to break up the banana (scraping down a few times), then I transferred it to a bowl and used my stick blender to blend it to a smooth consistency. It turns out the same… just takes a little more effort than with the F.P.

The ice cream can be served straight away as soft serve, or frozen for a few hours if you wish to scoop it into balls. In the freezer, the ice cream will last weeks.

We love to serve the ice cream with a drizzle of home-made chocolate sauce (recipe coming soon!), and a sprinkling of flaked almonds and cacao nibs.

This ice cream is not only simple to make, but it’s cheap (a great way of using up over ripe bananas!), it’s packed with nutrition, it’s dairy free, it has no refined sugar and it’s low fat. It also happens to be totally scrummy. Now that’s my kind of treat! 🙂

Here’s the printable recipe…

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Serves 4
Hands on time: 5 minutes

Ingredients
4 ripe bananas, sliced into coins and frozen overnight
3 tbsp raw cacao powder (regular cocoa powder will work too)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp virgin coconut oil (optional, but worth adding)
4 tbsp cacao nibs or choc chips
1-2 tbsp agave syrup or fruit sweetener, to taste

Method

  1. Place the frozen bananas, cacao powder, vanilla extract and coconut oil in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add the cacao nibs or choc chips, and liquid sweetener (to taste). Pulse to combine.
  2. Serve immediately as soft whip, or return to the freezer for a few hours for a firmer ice cream.

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For more info about raw chocolate and its wonderful properties, see this post.

What’s your favourite ice cream flavour?
I’d love to try a nutella version next… maybe using our home-grown cob nuts.

Have a great weekend everyone! xx

This time last year… A Wonderful Summer

13 thoughts on “Raw Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

  1. My personal favorite way to use up overripe bananas! I always have a supply in the freezer, in fact, I always buy more bananas than I know we can eat before they get too ripe. This sounds delicious with the addition of cacao powder.
    My very favorite ice cream flavor is anything with coffee in it (even though I don’t like coffee itself–weird, right?), particularly mocha almond fudge.

    1. Mocha Almond Fuge ice cream? Oh my gosh, that sounds so good! I love coffee but have never had the chance to try coffee ice cream before. I bet it’s amazing!

  2. Instant banana ice cream is such a saving grace with the girls, for a quick and healthy desert. So pleased you have inveted in a food processor – MM are great – my mum has one and as I’ve recently blown up my electric mixer, mini-chopper AND hand blender so I’m sure I can justify a similar investment soon 🙂 I love Italian morello cherry ice cream but tasted salted caramel ice cream at the weekend which was delish xx

    1. Sounds you like you need some more powerful appliances too. I’m enjoying the MM a lot, but still use the jug and hand blenders the most. It’s amazing how many appliances I “need” these days 😉
      When I visited Italy when I was a kid, my most vivid memory of the trip was the morello cherry ice cream. It was the nicest ice cream I’d tasted in my life!

  3. Yum! I love freezing over ripe bananas. What a great idea to add the coconut oil to smooth it out. I have a huge chocolate craving lately. Will be making this very soon! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

  4. Looks like your food processor is coming in handy. I have seen banana ice cream several places but yours looks VERY tasty. I need to remember to slice the bananas ahead of time. I tried once before but just froze the bananas with the peel off and whole (not chopped up). It was a complete pain to put it in the blender and try to make the ice cream out of it…long story short it was a failure.
    I can’t wait for the chocolate sauce.

    1. Yes, you definitely need to slice the bananas before freezing. I doubt that even the Vitamix could cope with a whole frozen banana! I always keep a couple of bags of frozen banana slices in the freezer as they come in handy for smoothies and whipping up some chocolate banana icecream for a quick dessert.

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