Desserts: Frozen banana with blueberry sauce

Coconut, mint and pine nuts make great toppings.

Frozen desserts are definitely one of the pleasures of Summer. And not necessarily a guilty one either – these treats can be natural goodness all the way. I’ve been using frozen banana bits as a main ingredient a lot recently. You might expect them to be icy like most frozen fruit but they actually have a surprisingly creamy texture and as long as you’re using fully ripe fruit, they also retain most of their sweetness and flavor.

You can use frozen bananas in a variety of ways: to make ice cream, covered with yogurt or as here, floating in some kind of fruit sauce. Once you have the bananas and blueberries frozen, the whole thing only takes about five to 10 minutes to make… and way less time to eat!

Ingredients

• 1 cup of blueberries
• 2 large ripe bananas
• 3 tablespoons of soy milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of cardamom
• 1 tablespoon of honey

You may need a little more
cardamom, depending on
its freshness.

Preparation
1. Peel and slice the bananas into smallish pieces – unless you are comfortable biting into larger chunks of frozen fruit. Spread the bits out on a large, flat plate so they don’t all stick together and then put them in the freezer. Place the blueberries in a separate container and also put them in the freezer.

2. Once the fruit is frozen and ready, place the blueberries, soy milk, cardamom and honey into the mill attachment of your blender and whizz until they are saucy. If you’re not sure what the mill attachment is, please take a look at this fruit concentrate recipe.

3. Transfer the bananas to a serving dish, spoon over the sauce and decorate as desired with shredded coconut, etc. Any leftover sauce can be stored in the fridge or freezer – or maybe just eaten right then.

Notes
When cutting up the bananas, it is easiest to slice the fruit in half length-wise and then dice it. A small point but it can save some tooth shock later. Definitely do peel and cut up the bananas before freezing them. Leaving on the skin may seem like a good short-cut… at least until you try and fail to remove it later.

If you’re not a fan of soy milk, rice milk or even water will work fine. Don’t blend the sauce mix for too long or the friction will cause it to defrost. You can add more cardamom for flavor but it may make the sauce a little “grainy.” As you would expect, liquid honey works best.

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