Not having ice cream in our house has been difficult on Mr. MVP. Before the switch to a FODMAP diet, ice cream was a treat, but mostly organic, five ingredient ice cream. Now that we are FODMAPers we’ve been having a hard time finding a suitable replacement. We’ve tried coconut ice cream, which Mr. MVP thought was just too coconutty and rice milk ice cream which just wasn’t chocolately enough, so at the risk of sounding like Goldilocks, I was worried we would never find a suitable replacement. *sigh*
I’ve been reading about vegan ice cream replacements and ran across this vegan chunky monkey on The Simple Veganista’s website and I was really excited to give it a try. Mr. MVP said he would keep an open mind, but he was not entirely hopeful. Banana ice cream did not sound like a winner. I added the ingredients to Splash Shopper anyhow. I’m crazy like that.
This is me.
The original recipe calls for three frozen bananas, three tablespoons of almond butter, almonds, and dark chocolate. We had everything except for the bananas. I read the recipe and noticed that three bananas makes one generous serving and even though the VP house is all about serving sizes, we do like to have leftovers. Here is my rough variation of this recipe with photos.
First, you need a food processor. We used our Cuisinart. I’ve read that you can also use a blender, but I’m a little skeptical. Next, you are going to need the following:
- Six chopped bananas, frozen
- Almond butter
- Dark chocolate chips (optional)
- Almonds (optional)
When I got home from the supermarket the day before we made our ice cream, I peeled and then chopped our bananas into bite sized pieces. I put all the pieces into a Food Saver bag, sealed it closed and stuck it in the freezer overnight. These bananas need to be super duper frozen. When we were ready the next day I took the frozen bananas and broke them into pieces and put them into the food processor.
Everybody In The Pool
Seriously, really break the pieces up.
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Next add the almond butter. I added three spoon fulls. My measuring is not quite exact and honestly three tablespoon fulls would not have been enough either. My best guess is we would have liked four spoon fulls. I simply added more in after I tasted it, so my advice to you is, if you like almond butter add four spoon fulls.
Precision Measuring
Now, place the lid on the food processer and start chopping. I think it took our bananas ten minutes to become ice cream consistency and that was after quite a bit of manipulation. We stopped the process and maneuvered the bananas around the blade and at one point we even took out a chunk of bananas, processed, and then reintegrated. What I am telling you is that it will feel like you are fighting a losing battle, but you will win and it will be delicious, so keep processing.
Action Shot
Once your bananas and almond butter are smooth you will know. I did not get a photograph of the smooth bananas, but close your eyes and picture really creamy bananas. Yup, that is what you’re going for. So, now it’s time to add the chocolate and nuts. These two ingredients are optional. We only added the dark chocolate, but next time we will most likely add the almonds. Anyhow. Simply open up your food processor and toss in two handfuls of dark chocolate chips, put the lid on, and chop them up. We chopped our chocolate into semi-large pieces, but you can make your chunks as large or small as you want by simply chopping for one quick second or five quick seconds. It’s pretty simple.
Ta Daa!
After everything is smooth and chopped we recommend moving it to a freezer safe container for about twenty minutes. This chunky monkey is really soft and giving it a little extra time in the freezer helps a whole lot. This twenty minutes – more or less- also gives you time to clean up the kitchen.
So Fancy!
Mr. MVP ate his cup of chunky monkey, turned to me and said, “my cup is broken”, which is his way of saying “that was really good and I’d like to eat an entire gallon.” I was super pleased with myself. We put the leftovers in the freezer and in just under 12 hours they froze into a solid block of chunky monkey goodness. So, to answer your question, to thaw out your ice cream simply place it in the microwave on defrost for 30 to 45 seconds, break it up in chunks with a fork, place it back in the microwave for 15 second increments until the ice cream softens. In the future we will freeze our leftovers in two-serving portions.
This simple vegan ice cream is FODMAP friendly, moderately healthy, doesn’t have any coconut, and as an extra special bonus contains the exact right amount of chocolate. I think even Goldilocks would approve.
About The Author
Nicole
Member of Team VP, knitter and Mama to Blue and Franks. Life, is bloody good.
