Homemade Ice Cream!

Who does not like ice cream? I don't think that there is anyone who does not love ice cream, right? What better way to chill in a hot, sunny day, especially in places with tropical climate like Malaysia?

Hang on... ice cream is full of fat and refined sugar-double whammy for the waistline and the heart! Cream, sugar and full-cream milk aside, there are lots of weird items in your summer dessert, such as artificial colouring, artificial flavouring, corn syrup, emulsifiers etc. Your body does not recognise these items, which add insult to injury on this already sinful, high-calorie dessert. Worse off, we love being very creative with our ice cream, hence the variety of ice-cream related snacks such as fried ice cream, milk shake, apple pie ala mode with whipping cream on the side...

So, does that mean that you cannot eat ice cream anymore?

Not for me, because I get to make ice cream which is

• clean
• healthy
• cruelty-free (See HERE to unveil the true face of the white, so-called good for your bones drink)
• low-fat
• high in fibre and potassium
• free from cholesterol, rBGH, antibiotics... all sorts of nasty things in the dairy industry that is
• raw (although I am not going raw anytime soon)
• cheap
• most importantly... EASY!

I recently Googled "easy ice cream making" and I stumbled THIS SITE which features one-ingredient ice cream. What? ONE INGREDIENT? I could not believe my eyes. What magic ingredient is that to make ice cream?

You guessed it. The secret lies in this tasty fruit.

(Image from Google)

BANANA!

I was so delighted and intrigued by that idea that I froze four bananas during the holidays. However, I only made the ice cream today because I was quite busy during the holidays. Having visited Cameron Highlands during the holiday, I froze some strawberries as well because I was planning to make ice cream Neapolitan-original, strawberry and chocolate.

To protect the blender, I peeled and sliced my bananas into moderately-thick coins before freezing them.

For those who like banana, you can freeze them when the skin of the bananas are brown and spotty, i.e. the bananas are very ripe. For those who prefer a mild flavour, however, you can process them when they are just ripe, i.e. no spot on the skin yet.

I am a die-hard banana fan, so you know what I did.

When I was about to use them, I thawed them in the fridge for around thirty minutes so that they are blender-friendly and not too soft at the same time. There is just one step needed:

BLEND IT!

That's right! Just blend the frozen banana coins until they are frothy. Take care not to let your blender run continuously though, because your blender might burn. I paused the blender a few times.

I blended the entire batch first, then leave half of the batch for some added fruity goodness-10 strawberries. That explained why the strawberry ice cream was more than the original flavour ice cream.

The freshly-blended ice cream.
Left: original. Right: strawberry.
I attempted to use rolled aluminium foil to make "compartments but got busted by mum. Boo...

The freshly-made version had a consistency like a smoothie. Yummy! Plus, it tastes really like soft ice cream, minus the overpowering sweetness, just natural sugar from the banana.

To be honest, it beats the smoothies at the smoothie bars and cafes hands down, in terms of taste and nutritional value.

Next time, I am SO going to make fruit smoothies in place of my usual daily oatmeal for breakfast.

The ice cream after being frozen for three hours. The appearance reminded me of mustard and ketchup LOL

How wrong I was. The bananas were too less for three flavours, so I only made two flavours: original and strawberry.

I had the ice cream as a post-dinner dessert-well, just about two teaspoonfuls of each flavour because I cannot consume lots of cold food. My dad and mum sampled them. Here are the responses from my family members:

SISTER: This reminds me of the supersized version of mustard and ketchup for fries! No thanks, I hate bananas. (So sad...)

MOTHER: It tastes FRUITY!

FATHER: Am I eating ice?

(No picture because mum does not allow me to take pictures of food, so I only get to take pictures when mum's not around. Shh...)

...

My ice cream was not very successful because it resembled ice pops or ice lollies rather than creamy ice cream. However, when I thawed it a little, it has the consistency of sorbet (at least it is a type of ice cream, right?), thank goodness. 

Mum told me to add in DAIRY MILK next time. Yikes! I will rather stick to bananas manifested in creamy frozen form than a dessert filled with pus, growth hormones and cruelty! Dad even asked me to add in sugar. As if bananas were not sweet enough...

Probably my family cannot accept the idea of dairy-free ice cream. It is alright, I will have them by myself, thank you very much!

I enjoyed it however, and I will definitely make this next time, though not in the near future. Probably if I live on my own, I will make large batches of this nice-cream (nice-cream because this ice cream is good for health and animals, took that nickname from FullyRawKristina) in different flavours. In this way, I can enjoy guilt-free ice cream for cheap, minus those icky additives.

I think I have to freeze the entire bunch of bananas next time so that I can get creative with them and have more healthy ice cream varieties to enjoy, guilt-free. This experience taught me to be patient too. I have to wait for the nice-cream to thaw so that I can actually taste the creaminess of this dessert.

By the way, you can adjust the ice cream to taste. Here are my suggestions:

• For fruity ice cream, I suggest using berries because they are juicy and freezable, such as strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. Frozen berries taste like candy on their own-well, they are INDEED candies, from Mother Nature.
• You can add cocoa powder, Nutella or Milo for a chocolatey-kick. The last two ingredients will render the ice cream non-vegan though because they contain dairy.
• Mix, mix, mix! Mix in chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruits or even any combo (how about ALL?) for a chunky ice cream.
• Drizzle it with cinnamon and honey. Again, for vegan version, use maple syrup in place of honey.
• Add in ground sesame for sesame ice cream which is high in calcium.
• Add in nut butter for extra protein, healthy fat and creamy texture.

You can create your own flavours too!

Otherwise... just leave it as it is, or have several flavours combined for double scoop, triple scoop... How about a bona-fide banana boat, with triple scoops of ice cream and a ripe banana sliced lengthwise at the side, topped with dried fruits, nuts and cherries? Don't tell me that you are using hundreds-and-thousands or maraschino cherries. They are artificially coloured and God knows what is used to make them. Ew.

(Image from Google)