Individual Pear Tarte Tatin

A meal, in my eyes, isn’t quite complete without something sweet at the end. At home, in London, I tend to reserve my major indulgences for the weekend, with natural sweeteners and whole grains, yoghurt and fruit featuring regularly during the working week. On honeymoon, however, we threw caution to the wind, eating dessert on every single day. Sometimes even twice.

Advertisement

Individual Almond Treacle Tarts

Flaky pastry, sweet, smooth filling & cool, creamy ice cream

For the last few days we’ve been eating our way around a small portion of the North of England. Our helping sizes, on the hand, have been rather large.

It all kicked off with a family wedding in Yorkshire on Thursday. In the unexpected (but wonderful) warm weather we feasted on three courses of stomach filling stuff – think greedy servings of soufflé, rare roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and thick lemon tart – before retiring for an afternoon of champagne and sunshine followed by an evening of even more food (in the form of dainty canapés, think crispy bacon scallops, miniature meringues and everything in between.

Individual Almond Treacle Tarts

Flaky pastry, sweet, smooth filling & cool, creamy ice cream

For the last few days we’ve been eating our way around a small portion of the North of England. Our helping sizes, on the hand, have been rather large.

It all kicked off with a family wedding in Yorkshire on Thursday. In the unexpected (but wonderful) warm weather we feasted on three courses of stomach filling stuff – think greedy servings of soufflé, rare roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and thick lemon tart – before retiring for an afternoon of champagne and sunshine followed by an evening of even more food (in the form of dainty canapés, think crispy bacon scallops, miniature meringues and everything in between.

Individual Almond Treacle Tarts

Flaky pastry, sweet, smooth filling & cool, creamy ice cream

For the last few days we’ve been eating our way around a small portion of the North of England. Our helping sizes, on the hand, have been rather large.

It all kicked off with a family wedding in Yorkshire on Thursday. In the unexpected (but wonderful) warm weather we feasted on three courses of stomach filling stuff – think greedy servings of soufflé, rare roast beef with Yorkshire puddings and thick lemon tart – before retiring for an afternoon of champagne and sunshine followed by an evening of even more food (in the form of dainty canapés, think crispy bacon scallops, miniature meringues and everything in between.

Tiramisu with Vin Santo

Rich, creamy & laced with chocolate & vin santo: the ultimate Italian pudding

If you’ve never eaten a seriously good tiramisu, you’ve not really lived.

Unfortunately if you’ve eaten a seriously bad one, you’re not alone.

Despite, or perhaps because of, its reputation for being delicious, Italian food is something that continually suffers from major misrepresentation around the world. But rather than focusing on flabby pizza or pre-shaved parmesan – don’t get me started on savoury, I could rant all day – I’m turning my attention today to all things sweet (surprise, surprise).

World’s healthiest banana ice cream

Bananas are one of those ingredients I always seem to have lying around. A bunch of beautiful yellow bananas always brightens up the kitchen, and knowing that the riper they get, the better flavour they give to baked goods, I never mind sticking a few extra in my basket. A few weeks ago I found a gorgeous banana, chocolate and walnut loaf recipe on Gourmet Traveller’s blog, and several blackened bananas from the side were reincarnated in a densely delicious teatime treat.

Before I found GT’s banana loaf, a number of other suggestions for leftover bananas came up in Google recipe search, and one which caught my attention was healthy banana ice cream. Billed as ‘simple, delicious and virtually fat free’ I thought it was worth a quick click. According to the blogger in question, you could make a tasty banana ice cream with just one ingredient: frozen banana.

Being a little loaf and baker at heart, I skimmed through the post, then clicked back to continue my search for an incredible banana bread or loaf. It wasn’t until a few days ago, with a glut of bananas staring at me from the counter top, that I remembered the ice cream post, and decided to give it a go (for the life of me I can’t remember what blog I found it on, if it was yours, give me a shout and I’ll link back to it!).

I know I’m posting on April 1^st, but I promise this is no April Fool. You really can make a rich, smooth, creamy ice cream from just frozen bananas.  My one piece of advice – stick with it. When you first pulse the banana it takes on an unappetizing gravelly texture, like large lumps of sand. But keep blitzing and the result is a soft, silky, ultimate banana ice cream. Its pretty rich and intense (in a banana-y way, rather than a dairy way), so you won’t need lots. Hardly a recipe at all, but definitely worth having up your sleeve for months when the shelves are light, or your stomach is not!

World’s healthiest banana ice cream

Serves 2

4 large ripe bananas, chopped into 1cm cubes

Freeze bananas for at least 24 hours. Remove from freezer and place in a Magimix or Blender. Blitz until bananas form a rich, smooth, ice cream. Serve straight away or refreeze, allowing to defrost slightly before serving.

For the non-purists out there, this would also be delicious with some added extras – peanut butter, maple syrup, chocolate chips or even a little yoghurt to tone down the banana flavour.