Banana Coconut Soft Serve Ice Cream

I love ice cream.  When I discovered a healthier option, I thought I needed to share the recipe with you all, because it is so simple and so delicious.  This banana soft serve has only 5 ingredients that you can enjoy within 5 minutes!  Yes, that is right, in the time it takes to blend it up in the blender, you can be enjoying sweet ice cream goodness!  All you need is frozen bananas, some coconut butter, coconut water, vanilla extract and the liquid sweetener of your choice.  I have kept this recipe sugar free, using stevia, but if you like another liquid sweetener better you can feel free to use it.  Don’t have coconut butter?  Don’t fret, you can make banana almond soft serve swapping out almond butter for the coconut, or even peanut butter banana if you chose to use peanut butter instead.  It is your blank palate that will be tailored to your dessert cravings.  Also, you can even make it chocolate by adding a few tablespoons cacao powder if you wish or feel free to stir in nuts and other goodies. Ice cream season will be here soon, enjoy!

Author: Amy Lyons O’Neil

Amy has worked for Fresh and Natural Foods since 2006 contributing to the variety of healthful foods we offer. She graduated with a degree in studio art from Bethel University in 2007, but in her senior year of college, found that her passion was with the art of food. She later used her photography and culinary skills to create a vegan food and recipe blog, Fragrant Vanilla Cake. She has also written 3 cookbooks. She specializes in vegan and vegetarian recipes. Local, fresh and organic food has always been her focus in whatever she creates.

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Servings: 2 | Prep Time: 5 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Ready in: 5 min

Ingredients

• 4 organic bananas, frozen
• 2 Tbsp raw Artisana coconut butter, warmed to liquid
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• A few drops liquid stevia (or 1 Tbsp raw coconut or agave nectar)
• 2-3 Tbsp Blue Monkey coconut water

Instructions

Cut the bananas into slices and place them on a foil lined tray in the freezer.  Freeze until very hard, a few hours, or overnight.  Remove from the freezer and place in a high speed blender or food processor with the coconut butter, vanilla, coconut water, and stevia.  Blend until smooth, using the tamper to press the mixture down into the blade (if using a blender), or stopping the machine to scrape down the sides (if using a food processor.  It takes about a minute to blend with a high speed blender, but may take about 4-5 with a food processor.  Enjoy right away!

Variation: to make chocolate ice cream, add 3-4 Tbsp raw or regular cacao powder with the other ingredients!