Vessy's day » bananas

Chocolate ice-cream with chocolate topping (healthy&vegan)

Vessy — Mon, 29 Aug 2016 10:52:33 +0000

This recipe is for all of you guys, who love chocolate and could never ever resist a good chocolate treat. But don’t we all search for healthier desserts nowadays?! This chocolate ice-cream is not only absolutely delicious but it’s also healthy, so healthy that you can eat it every day, without any gilt. Recipe is pretty much classic – bananas for good creamy texture, coconut cream, because it’s healthier than regular cream and also super flavorful, coconut butter, because every good ice-cream needs a little bit of fat, healthy sweetener like agave, honey or maple – your choice, and of course good quality cocoa powder for the chocolate flavor. If you have some extra cocoa butter in the fridge, I would suggest adding a tablespoon or two to the ice-cream for even richer chocolate flavor.
Well, for this recipe you don’t need an ice-cream maker but if you have one, you can totally use it. But if you are like me and have no space for an ice-cream maker, you will love this recipe cause it is great even without churning it. As many low-fat, no-churn ice-creams this one freezes pretty hard, but if you leave it at room temperature for about 30 minutes before serving it will be good to go.
Proportions of ingredients are optional, so if you want your ice-cream sweeter, then add extra honey or maple, if you like it extra chocolaty you may add additional teaspoon or two cocoa powder. The same goes for all the rest ingredients. I usually add less honey/maple, keeping it less sweet, the way my husband like it, and then prepare this amazing chocolate sauce where I add a little bit extra honey to balance the sweetness of the ice-cream. This way everyone at home is happy – my husband is having the ice-cream less sweet and I have it just right with a generous amount of the chocolate sauce on top.
If you swirl in a couple of tablespoons of the chocolate sauce before you put the ice-cream in the freezer, once chilled it will hardens like real chocolate and you will end up with delicious chocolate chips into the creamy coconut ice-cream.
Proportions of the chocolate sauce are also optional, just adjust the thickness and the taste on the go – the more cocoa powder the thicker it will get, add more or less honey/maple/agave, depending on your taste.

Ingredients for the ice cream:
2 large bananas
100 grams (3,5 oz) cashew nuts, soaked overnight or for 1 hour in hot water
1 can coconut cream
2 tablespoons coconut butter, melted
2 tablespoons cocoa butter (optional), melted
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
1 tablespoon honey/agave/maple syrup
About 50 grams (1,7 oz) cocoa powder
Ingredients for the chocolate sauce:
50 grams (1,7 oz) coconut butter, melted and cooled slightly
2-3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cocoa powder

In your blender, add bananas, cashews, coconut cream, coconut butter, cocoa butter, coconut extract, maple syrup (or agave/honey) and cocoa powder. Blend on high speed until nicely smooth and creamy. No chunks of the cashew nuts should be visible. Cashew nuts will blend smoothly if soaked long enough.
**** In case you want to make a swirl black & white ice-cream: blend all ingredients except cocoa powder. In a small bowl pour out 1/3rd of the “white ice-cream mixture” and set aside. Add cocoa powder to the rest of the mixture in the blender and blend for a few minutes or until fully incorporated. Fill your ice-cream container with the chocolate mixture up to half then swirl in the white mixture using a spoon. Pour the rest of the chocolate mixture and stir gently to combine with the lower layer of white ice-cream. Cover and put in the freezer.
Serve with the chocolate sauce, nuts or fruits of your choice.
To make the chocolate sauce: in a small bowl melt the coconut butter. Set aside to cool off a bit, then add honey/maple and cocoa powder. Stir until smooth. It may seem a bit thinner at first, but if you set it aside for about an hour and it will thickens a lot. Keep left over sauce in the fridge and reheat when you need it.

Kiwi ice-cream

Vessy — Thu, 11 Jun 2015 06:29:06 +0000

Let’s just say that this homemade ice-cream is just heaven, plus you don’t need an ice-cream machine to prepare it.

As I have shared in previous ice-cream posts, the secret of homemade ice-cream is in the fat. You have to use full-fat cream in order to get a nice creamy texture of the ice-cream.

Bananas help a lot, as well. They are a great base of an ice-cream, because they don’t have much water and freeze perfectly.

When you make a homemade ice-cream and you don’t have a machine, just keep the water % on the lowest, use products with less water and you will be fine!

Enjoy this 5 minute recipe!

Ingredients:
100 ml. heavy whipping cream, whipped
250 grams (9 oz) kiwi jam (drained, use only only the fruit)
2 large bananas

In a large bowl puree the bananas and kiwi jam. If you want to use fresh kiwis, just add a few table spoons of powder sugar to adjust the sweetness of the ice-cream.
Add the whipped cream and gently mix with a rubber spatula.
Pour the mixture in a freezer proof container and freeze overnight.
Before serving take the ice-cream out of the freezer for about 30 minutes.

Strawberry stracciatella ice-cream

Vessy — Fri, 29 May 2015 15:48:41 +0000

Have you ever wonder how to make a homemade ice-cream without an ice-cream machine! Well, today I will show you how to prepare a delicious, rich strawberry ice-cream, which tastes as good as a store bought ice-cream and it will take you not more than 10 minutes to prepare! Isn’t that great?

The secret of a good ice-cream is in the fat. True story! The more fat an ice-cream contains the better it tastes. So, if you are using a good quality, full fat cream you will get better results.

Adding the bananas help to keep the structure and texture of the ice-cream rich, after all we don’t want to make a sorbet and without an ice-cream machine we have to use a few tricks, such as “bananas”.

I promise that you will love this ice-cream!

Ingredients:
2 medium bananas
200 grams (7 oz) strawberry jam (or fresh strawberries)
200 ml. heavy whipping cream (coconut if you prefer)
70 grams (2.5 oz) shredded dark chocolate

Puree bananas with the strawberries (or strawberry jam). Set aside.
Whip the heavy whipping cream until soft peaks form. Add the cream to the strawberries and bananas and mix well with rubber spatula.
Stir in the chocolate.
Note: If you are using fresh strawberries, instead of strawberry jam, make sure to add a couple of table spoons powder sugar, or let the natural sweetness of the strawberries, sweeten the ice-cream. Just taste it and adjust the sweetness as you prefer.
Pour the mixture into a suitable for freezer dish and freeze it.
Store in the freezer up to a month.
Before you serve, let it out of the freezer for 15 minutes to softens a bit.

White chocolate chip banana muffins

Vessy — Wed, 25 Mar 2015 16:28:21 +0000

These banana muffins are amazing! Soft, moist,sweet and full of flavor!

I baked these for the celebration of my baby boy turning 5 months! They are great for any kind of celebration or kids birthday party – easy and quick to prepare and we could say they are a bit on the healthier side since there the batter includes a lot of bananas and only 100 grams of sugar.

Ingredients:
250 grams (9 oz) flour
1 tea spoon baking powder
A pinch of salt
130ml. buttermilk
100 grams (3,5 oz) sugar
65 ml. plain flavored oil/melted butter
70 grams (2,5 oz) honey
2 medium eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed
150 grams white chocolate chips
Decoration: whipped coconut chocolate ganache

In a large bowl mix all dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, sugar, salt and chocolate chips.

In another bowl mix all wet ingredients: buttermilk, oil, honey, eggs and bananas.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and fold gently with rubber spatula.

Preheat your oven to 180 C (350 F).

Line a 12 muffin pan with paper cups.

Distribute the mixture evenly between the muffin cups and bake for 20 minutes.

Leave to cool on a wire rack then decorate with the whipped chocolate ganache.

Banana marshmallow pie

Vessy — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 16:46:55 +0000

This amazing pie is one of my favorite desserts already! If you have wondered how to make the classic banana pie a little bit more interesting and sugary – then this is your answer – banana marshmallow pie with home-made slated caramel sauce.

The combination of salted caramel, bananas and marshmallow fluff is absolutely amazing and for sure not to be missed.

I made my own salted caramel sauce, which is very easy to do and you don’t even have to own a candy thermometer to make it. I would recommend to have the sauce ready a day in advance or at least a few hours, since it takes time for it to chill and thickens. In case you are in a rush, feel free to substitute it for a store bought dulce de leche.

Additionally, as you know both caramel and marshmallow fluff are very sweet, so you may add two layers of bananas, instead of one, as I did.

Ingredients:

3-4 bananas

5-6 table spoons shredded chocolate

Ingredients for the crust:
450 grams graham cracker biscuits
250 grams melted butter

Ingredients for the marshmallow fluff:
7 large egg whites
700 grams granulated white sugar
1 tea spoon vanilla extract

Ingredients for the caramel filling:
150-200 ml. whipping cream
300 grams white sugar
100 grams butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Himalayan salt to taste

For the crust:
Mix the crumbs and butter in a a small bowl.
Spray a 10 inch (26 sm/10 inch) cake pan with removable sides, with non-stick spray.
Pour the mixture into the cake tin. Spread evenly on the bottom and sides and press it with the bottom of a flat glass spoon, just like when you make cheesecake.

I would recommend to spread thicker layer of biscuits, especially on the sides, because they are easy breakable.

Place the cake tin in the fridge.

For the marshmallow fluff:
Add the sugar and egg whites in a heatproof bowl over a double boiler.

Cook the mixture until the sugar completely dissolves (or reaches 160F, if you have a candy thermometer).

Then, add the vanilla and mix with a hand or stand mixer until the meringue is fluffy, thick and glossy.

For the salted caramel sauce:
Add the sugar in a heavy saucepan (medium size) – I used non-stick, since it is easier to work with. Heat the sugar over medium-high heat. Whisk the sugar frequently, while it start to melt. You’ll see at first that the sugar will begin to form clumps, but do not worry, because they will melt back down. Make sure not to burn the sugar, so I would recommend to heat it first at low temperature, and then gradually increase it until you reach the right temperature for melting, without burning the sugar.
Cook the sugar until it reaches (180 C) 350 F. I do have a thermometer myself, but if you don’t have the thermometer cook the sugar until it begins to darken – this is the moment when you have to decide if you prefer darker color or lighter. So, cook the sugar less for lighter color and more for darker.
Then, add the butter – the mixture will rapidly foam and double its size, which is absolutely normal. This is the reason you have to use a bigger saucepan.
Now, when you add the butter, you have to decide how thick you want your salted caramel sauce – the more you cook the sugar and butter, the thicker it will get. Keep in mind that the sauce may seem more liquid in the pan, but it will thicken a lot once it is chilled.

So, I cooked the butter and sugar about 5-7 minutes, then took off the saucepan from the heat.

Add the cream, vanilla and salt and mix well. Keep in mind that the more cream you add the less thicker your sauce will get, so add about 100 ml. at first, stir, and then add more if you think you will need it, but remember that the sauce will thicken.

The thickness of the sauce depends also on the type of cream you use – I tried making the sauce with animal fat cream and the sauce became thicker, even though I added more cream than usual.

When using vegetable fat cream, just use less cream, since it is not as thick itself.

If you have some leftover caramel sauce, you may store it in the fridge up to a month in a airtight jar.

Assembling the pie:

Take the cake tin out of the fridge.

Pour the caramel cause on the bottom of the cake tin, over the chilled crust.

Using a spoon spread a bit of the caramel on the sides, if you want.

Cut the bananas in pieces and arrange them tightly over the caramel (one or two layers – of your choice). Sprinkle with the shredded chocolate.

Pour the marshmallow fluff into a piping bag, fitted with decorative tip of your choice and decorate the pie as you prefer.

Using a brulee torch, lightly burn the edges of the marshmallow fluff on top. Leave in the fridge for a few hours before you cut the pie, because you need the caramel sauce to thickens.

White chocolate mousse with bananas

Vessy — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 17:42:30 +0000

This amazing, super delicious recipe is actually a result of a lazy and boring Saturday. It was one of those days, when I was bored to death at home. And I have to tell you, I like to be engaged in all kinds of activities, as long as they are interesting. When I am at home I usually cook or research future recipes, and plan ahead my time and the recipes I am going to cook during my weekends, but this time I had nothing… no plan, no idea. I opened my fridge and I saw cream and eggs (what a surprise lol). This is when I realized why this recipe is so great – it is made of three major ingredients – cream, chocolate and eggs. I bet every one of you, most of the time, have those three ingredients in the fridge. It is great because you can prepare the chocolate mousse anytime you think of. The recipe is easy, quick not complicated.

I have the honor to be a guest blogger on Yummly’s Blog and share with their readers one of my recipes. What better chance then showing my Saturday Chocolate mousse. I hope their readers and you guys will enjoy it as much as I enjoyed cooking it!

If you want to read the whole recipe, just click here.