Frozen Dessert
Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Bananas with Coconut
Bobby’s dream is to retire to a beach in the Caribbean and sell frozen chocolate-covered bananas on a stick (see A Bit More, Y’all). He’d be open from noon to one, just long enough to eat lunch and read the paper. The hoped-for sales for each day would be six bananas. Seeing how this dream is not coming true any time soon, he’ll just have to settle for these island-inspired delights. We roll them in coconut for that tropical taste, and since they’re mostly fruit, they’re a pretty healthy dessert or snack. For an extra-special treat, roll them in the crushed candy or cookie topping of your choice.
Homemade Ice Cream
Another of the treats of summer was making ice cream, cracking up the big block of ice and taking turns with the crank—hard work that was rewarded by getting to lick the dasher when the ice cream was ready. Today we can buy convenient small ice cream makers that allow you to put the freezer bowl into the freezer so there’s no chopping of ice and the churning goes much faster. I particularly like making my own ice cream because I can use pure ripe seasonal fruits and berries and pure cream, without all the additives of candies and cookies that go into the commercial varieties today. Also, it’s a good way to preserve berries if I’ve been tempted to stop at a nearby farm where you can pick your own—and I inevitably pick more than I can eat up.
Ice Cream Cake
If you are having a party, I suggest this cake for two important reasons. First, you can make it up to a week ahead so you can focus on all the party duties you put off until the last moment. Second, there is not a person alive who doesn’t love ice cream cake. (If you find someone who says he/she doesn’t like ice cream cake, you can be pretty sure he/she is an insecure liar and I suggest you steer very clear of him/her.) I’ve really come to like the raspberry, vanilla, and chocolate combo, but there are absolutely no constraints on the flavor pairings with this one, and you can swap the layers around if you want.
Banana Royale
I’m not a fan of the usual banana split because raw bananas taste too—how do I say this?—healthy for a sundae surrounded by all that other sweet chaos. So I add a little love and caramelize the bananas, which transforms them into a richly textured miracle and brings a buttery taste not available in your garden-variety banana split.
Frozen Chocolate-Dipped Bananas
You’ll notice in a minute that this recipe does not call for the Sugar-Sweetened Chocolate Dipping Sauce (page 123), even though it might harden up in the freezer a little better than the alternative. Instead, I turn to the agave-sweetened version because, to my mind, there’s no sense in rolling a perfectly nutritious snack in vegan sugar when an agave-sweetened option offers an equally excellent alternative.
It’s-It
When I lived in San Francisco, my friend Mark introduced me to the city’s greatest contribution to the dessert course: It’s-It frozen cookie sandwiches. These little numbers are practically perfect—two oatmeal cookies with a thick scoop of ice cream in between, all thinly coated with semisweet chocolate. Mark preferred the kind with mint-flavored ice cream and so do I, but you can nix the mint in this recipe if you must. To sweeten this with agave, replace the natural cane sugar with 2/3 cup agave nectar, add an extra 1/4 cup all-purpose gluten-free flour, remove the chocolate chips, and use Agave-Sweetened Chocolate Glaze (page 124).
Mango Upside-Down Cake with Basil Ice Cream
Fresh fruit caramelized and embedded in rich buttery cake makes a great dessert any time of year. Just about any seasonal fruit that you have on hand works very well in this recipe. Try peaches, apricots, and, of course, pineapple. The beauty of this one-pan cake is its simplicity: you don’t even need a cake pan. If the basil in your herb garden has, like mine, grown to the size of a bush, and you’ve had your fill of pesto, consider trying the basil ice cream recipe. Basil is a super fruity and floral herb, which to me is a natural for ice cream. When people take their first bite, the reaction is always the same: oh my God!
Honey Frozen Custard with Honeycomb Candy
Alone, I am happy to eat butter cookies dipped in honey for dessert. This recipe is not quite as fast but is worth the time. It has the texture of perfect soft-serve ice cream, and since it’s not actually a proper custard, no cooking is required.
Sour Cream Ice Cream with Sorghum
Sorghum is a rich, earthy syrup produced mostly in the South and Midwest from a naturally sweet and juicy grass of the same name. So nutritious that doctors used to recommend a daily dose, it is similar to molasses but a little less sweet and with a deeper flavor.
Mocha Sorbet
The richness of this dark, not-too-sweet sorbet belies the simplicity of its ingredients and ease of preparation. Serve it as a lovely dessert, or use it as a pick-me-up on a hot afternoon. The refreshing iciness and the chocolate-coffee flavor are especially good after Mexican food.