Summer is around the corner. It is finally officially time to eat ice cream (not that we wouldn’t have been eating any for the rest of the year). I think pretty much everyone is excited about this like a little child. However, as tasty as it is, it most of the time is not healthy. Unfortunately. So, guess what?! We are making it ourselves and making a healthy version of the classic.
My Ice-Cream Love ??
I have always been a fan of ice cream. Even when I was super little, or maybe especially then! We have a series of pictures showing meaning eating an ice cream and it is hilarious. The first picture, me sitting in the sand with the ice cream in the hand. The second one was me (still sitting at the same place) with ice cream all over my mouth. And the third one, the best one, me looking really sad at the scoop of ice cream that is not in the cone any more but all over my dress. Yes, I always had a passion for food, and no I was not always a clean and tidy eater. My parents always said that one could read the Manu off of my shirt because I pretty much ALWAYS stained it with what I was eating.
But fast forward, plenty years later I still really enjoy eating ice cream, although it ends up in my mouth and not on my shirt now. In my family, to. be honest we eat lots of ice cream. We rarely (maybe like twice a year) have cake after lunch as a dessert or in the afternoon, as it is really common in Austria, but we most of the time we’ll have ice cream.
Why is Ice cream not healthy?
Next time you buy some at the super market you can check the ingredients. You’ll be surprised by all of the ingredients used. Besides some chemicals and flavour extracts (or „natural flavours“) in most ice creams you will find a ton of sugar and a good amount of cream in them. This quickly loads up to about 20 g of sugar per ice cream and 15 g of fat. And all of this in one single ice cream!
How to choose a healthier ice cream
Of course, not every single ice cream has this nutritional value. There are simple and easy ways to choose a healthier ice cream, both in a supermarket but also in a fresh Gelateria. Always remember that fruit – based ice cream is healthier than non fruit based ice cream. Because of three reasons: Fruits are already sweet themselves, so there is no need to add much sugar, the have more vitamins and fibre and usually, in fruit Ice creams you will not find heavy cream or other fatty add-ins. Without the addition of sugar or cream, these ice cream usually tend to be half or 2/3 as high in calories as cream based ice cream like chocolate, stracciatella or hazelnut. So when you want to opt for a healthier version, be more on the fruitier side.
How to make healthy ice cream
There are several ways on how to make ice cream yourself. This depends on what ice cream you want to make. If you want to make something similar to what you can get in a Gelateria, a super simple version of this is to simply make nice cream/ smoothie bowls. You can find many many recipes of such on my Instagram (every week there is a new one coming).
In this blog post I am going to show you how to make a popsicle one. This also is really simple. It is easiest if you have a form for popsicles at home (you can find plenty of those on amazon). If you do not want to purchase one that is fine too. What you should do then is to pour the ice cream mixture into a loaf pan and freeze it in such. Before dunking it in the melted chocolate take it out of the fridge. Take a sharp knife and dip it in hot water. Then carefully cut the big block of ice cream apart into popsicle sized squares. On the lower end (the thin side) cut a small whole in the ice cream with the knife. It should be just big enough to fit a wooden skewer to hold the ice cream. Dip the skewer in the molten chocolate nd stick it into the ice cream. Let this freeze until it all sticks together. Once it holds well, you can dip it in the molten chocolate.
Summer can come!
Yes, making ice cream yourself is not difficult. Neither is making healthy ice cream yourself. With just very few ingredients you can make a super tasty and healthy ice cream yourself to have healthy treats in the freezer all summer long!
I hope you’ll love this recipe as much as I do and enjoy summer!
I hope you’ll love this recipe as much as I do and enjoy summer!
Healthy Vegan Magnum
A vegan version of the classic summer popsicle. Too good to be true, plus it is super healthy & vegan!
What you will need
- 1 banana
- 200 ml coconut milk
- 200 g soy yoghurt
- 60 g maple syrup
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 160 g dark chocolate (vegan)
- 1 tbsp coconut oil
- 50 g cashews Soaked in water for at least 4 hours
How to
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In a bowl or a blender mash the banana. Drain the cashews. Add them along with the coconut milk, soy yoghurt, maple syrup and vanilla to a blender or a bowl with a hand blender and mix until everything is well combined and a smooth consistency is reached. Pour into the ice cream form (if you do not have one check out the paragraph in the blog post that says "How to make healthy ice cream").
Freeze for at least 5 hours to overnight.
After 5 hours melt the chocolate and coconut oil in either the microwave or on a double boiler. Take the popsicle form out of the freezer and run it under hto water so you can easily get the popsicles out. Place some parchment paper on a large plate.
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Dip each ice cream in the molten chocolate and place on the plate. Once you have done this with every ice cream place it in the freezer again for at least 30 minutes.
Enjoy!
Happy cooking,
Enjoy,
Katie // Une Petite Cuisinière