Banana cookie dough ice cream

Cookie dough banana ice cream

Who doesn’t love a dollop of delicious, creamy ice cream? Even when the weather gets colder? It’s probably one of my favourite desserts and my four year old would eat it at every meal if I let him!

Obviously all the additional sugar in the traditional dessert isn’t ideal and means that it’s kept as a ‘sometimes’ food in our house. Frozen banana ice creams are a win. They are full of healthy fats and, without added sugar, they are a fabulous gelato substitute. Not exactly like the original dessert, but I think they are just as delicious. The secret is to make sure the bananas are as ripe as possible because they are the only source of sweetness in the dish. This ice cream is very rich, so a little goes a long way. It makes a yummy creamy squishy treat on the go when served in a Super Squish pouch.

Recipe

You will need:

  • 4 large very ripe bananas
  • about 250ml coconut cream
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened peanut butter or another unsweetened nut butter of your choice – I love the Meridian brand!
  • 1 tsp Vanilla extract

Method

Peel the bananas and chop up into small pieces then freeze. Freeze in small batches – small enough to fit in your food processor. This is very important, as if you don’t freeze in small portions, it is impossible to put in the food processor. Blitz the frozen banana with all the other ingredients until smooth and creamy. Place into a freezable container or spoon into Super Squish pouches and freeze. Stir the banana ice cream every 30 minutes or so (if you remember!) until it’s frozen.

Delicious! Tastes like cookie dough…yum!

TIP: To make the banana ice cream nut free, substitute the nut butter for a tablespoon or two of cocoa for a chocolatey variation! You could also add chocolate chips before freezing.

ANOTHER TIP: You could spoon the banana ice cream into ice cube trays and then when frozen decant into a zip loc bag. You can then take a few cubes of ice cream out and pop into the Super Squish pouch when you want to go out. The ice cream will defrost a bit so its ready to eat! Its rich, so a few cubes are a perfect sweet treat.

Super Squish jelly pouch

Super Squish Jelly Pouches

My 4 year old son has been to a few birthday parties recently and has been introduced to jelly pouches. Basically these are pouches filled with a very very (VERY!!) sweet jelly kind of stuff. Of course the kids love them! What’s not to love?

I happened to look at the sugar content in the jelly pouch and saw that each pouch contains the equivalent of 4.7 sugar cubes or 18.8g sugar – which is half the sugar in a can of sugary cola! I get that these sugars are naturally occurring sugars in the fruit from which the fruit juice is made, but still, too much sugar in our diets isn’t good. According to the Sugar Smart app (launched by Public Health England), a 4-6 year old shouldn’t have more than 5 sugar cubes or 19g of sugar a day. So one little pouch has almost maxed out the recommended daily sugar allowance in one go!

I’m not saying that I won’t let my son have sweet treats, including fruit juices, but I’d like to keep them as just that, a treat, every now and then. My aim is to try as best I can, to find lower sugar alternatives to some of these treats. This led me to do some research into making my own jelly from reduced sugar fruit juice. I found an article in the Guardian called the Universal Jelly Principle with a tagline of “Almost any food can be made into a jelly by following a few simple guidelines”. I couldn’t resist the challenge so gave it a go.

I was pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy it was to make my own reduced sugar jelly pouches! Of course, they first had to go through rigorous taste testing but thankfully my 4 year old gave them a thumbs up. The added bonus is that the jelly has a third of the sugar found in the store bought equivalent. I’m now feeling brave and will definitely be experimenting with new recipes!

Ingredients:

Reduced sugar fruit juice – I wanted a fresh juice that didn’t have added sweetener, so I went for Innocent Light & Juicy Peach and Raspberry. It does produce a cloudy jelly with a bit of a grainy texture, so if your little one has a problem with textured foods, you might want to try and use a clear juice as a start.

Gelatine sheets – I used Costa brand as recommended by a friend – you can buy it from Amazon/Waitrose/Ocado. Any gelatine sheets would no doubt work as well.

Method (based on the method in the Guardian article): fills 4 Super Squish pouches

-NOTE:  As I was making the jelly in the pouches and I wasn’t unmolding them, I used about 4.5 gelatine sheets to 600ml liquid. I would suggest reading the article first, as the amount of gelatine required varies with the amount of liquid you are using.
– Cut up the gelatine sheets into small pieces and put into a small metal bowl
– Boil water in a pan on the stove and turn down heat and allow to simmer
– Pour a small amount of the juice over the gelatine pieces so that they are just covered
– Place the bowl containing the gelatine and fruit juice over the boiling water and stir until the gelatine dissolves
– Take the bowl off the heat, add the remaining fruit juice and stir well to mix
– Pour into the Super Squish pouches and place in the fridge to set. It should be set in a few hours.

Unlike the store bought jelly pouches, these are best if eaten cold.