Two Natural Ice Cream Flavors You Can Make this Summer

I seriously cannot recall how it felt during the cold months of January and February.

Even though our weather here in the south is a bit on the "cool" side now because of the storm (Oh God protect us!), the air is still hot and humid.

As it's already officially summer, is there a better thing to do than eat ice cream?

Yes, there is something better. Make one!

This week and last week, I made two different ice cream flavors that you can create at home. Aside from being more affordable than commercial ice cream, these only have two ingredients each. What's not to love?

First one is the classic avocado ice cream. Americans might be surprised to hear that we eat this fruit in sweet desserts. Anyway, I love avocado because it has protein and healthy saturated fats which we all need.

To make the ice cream, you only need two ingredients: avocados and condensed milk.

Yes, I know condensed milk is not the most nutritious stuff on the planet and it raises the cholesterol level of this ice cream, but there's no better replacement for this (unless you can suggest one?). Plain milk makes the mixture too liquid, which is not good in creating ice cream, while honey does not make it creamy enough.

I seriously believe it's still better than commercial ice cream!

How to make it? Just blend the two ingredients together! I don't have measurements because you only need to add the milk from time to time until you achieve the flavor you want.

The second ice cream you can make is a lot healthier than the first: banana-peanut butter! I actually first wrote about it last year. I love bananas because they're rich in potassium while peanut butter is full of protein.

Like the name suggests, you only need bananas and peanut butter.

You can use any kind of peanut butter, but I shy away from using brands with too many ingredients. My current favorite is the local Danes brand as I have yet to see a brand here with just peanuts as the ingredient.

Anyway, just blend the two ingredients together! Again, I don't have a measurement for this. Just gradually add the PB until you achieve the flavor you want.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take a photo of the actual ice cream because we quickly ate it all up during a power interruption. Fail!

That's it! Have a great summer!

Tip: You can make any fruit combination that you want. Just remember to use fruits that are fleshy and not those that are juicy (oranges, watermelon). While these fruits are great for juices and smoothies, I don't think you'll be able to make creamy ice cream with them.

PS: This week or maybe next, I might make mango ice cream. Yum!

PPS: What about durian? Ooh interesting, although there are only two people in the house who eat durian: my mother and my kuya. Hihi

PPPS: If you're not fond of ice cream (how come?!), here are two healthy alternatives to battle the summer heat:

Yogurt

Ice-cold chocolate made of 100% chocolate callets from Cacao de Davao

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Noob Baker: 5-Minute Peanut Butter Chocolate-Chip Cake

Blogger confession: This post has been sitting in my drafts for, what, almost 3 weeks already! This is just to explain that since writing the initial draft, I've baked for several times na. Yabang ko lang no?

Now that we got that shameless confession out of the way, let me begin my story. Yuri is a picky eater. He doesn't care for rice much, but he loves other forms of carbohydrates: bread, pancit, cakes, biscuits, etc. He doesn't like sweets, but he does go overboard when I give him a slice of bread or cake. That's the point in my undomesticated life where I decided I should learn how to bake.

My mother is a superb baker. I kid you not. While there are very rare times when her baking fails (mostly due to our cranky oven), in the other 99% of the time, her cakes and pastries are flawless. Of course, I want to inherit her baking and cooking gene; I just didn't want have the patience to deal with an old oven and matches.

That's where I realized I can bake using our microwave oven! I've come across so many microwave cake recipes; I just wasn't interested before. What's stopping me now? So one day, when we had a bunch of bananas about to go overripe and a fresh jar of local peanut butter, I knew I just have to try.

Obviously, I was about to bake for the very first time: Peanut Butter Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips. I tweaked the recipe from here. Here are the ingredients:

The original recipe makes a cake in a mug, but that's not enough for us. So I doubled everything. I also removed the egg from the recipe.

• 8 Tablespoons Flour
• 8 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 5 Tablespoons Peanut Butter (Just a local brand from my parents' officemate)
• 2 Ripe Bananas
• 6 Tablespoons Milk (I used Oaties; I like its flavor)
• 4 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil (I used Canola)

If you notice, the photo above shows Cocoa Powder. I changed my mind after taking the photo because I wanted to make a plain peanut butter cake. I decided to use chocolate chips instead (not in photo).

Now, for the procedure. Actually, there's no procedure. Just mix everything into a microwaveable bowl! I mixed the dry ingredients first and added the liquids one by one.

Here's how the mixture looked like when I added the chocolate chips:



Then, just pop it into the oven. I was able to make enough for two medium-sized microwavable bowls. Please remember not to fill it more than halfway because the mixture will rise. Anyway, I just placed the setting on High and timed it for about 3 minutes (according to the microwave timer).

After pacing back and forth, wishing that what I just made is, at least, edible, here they are!



Lovely, peanut-buttery color!



And it's really moist and chewy ha, certainly not what I expected from a microwaved cake! Actually, my sister told me it reminds her of butterscotch brownies. Haba ng hair, sayo na ang korona!

For the taste test! It's sweet and really peanut-buttery. There is a slight hint of banana, and the chocolate chips (I used dark) balance the sweetness of the peanut butter. It had the seal of approval from my sister, who devoured the bowl in one sitting. What about my other cake connoisseur?

Please know that he sneezed in the photo above. His facial reaction is in no way related to the taste of the cake.

He liked it! Woot!

For the next several days, I baked some other stuff in my microwave. I baked a chocolate cake that had too much flour and too little sugar. Fail! But I baked another one to mask the failure haha.

 My brother and I also prepared pancakes. Well, it's not baking, but it has something to do with flour, right?

On a sidenote, I seriously love Swiss Miss Dark Chocolate, the box behind the regular Swiss Miss. It reminds me of local tablea! :-)

Of course, it would take a long time before I can copy my mother's famous Chocolate Moist Cake (no photo) or her muffins that rival Krispy Kreme's Kruffins:

Or our neighbor's fantastic special ensaymada:

Or a chocolate mousse cake, like this one from Bread Talk (which my parents got one day for absolutely no reason):

Nevertheless, it is addicting and is a great stress-reliever, so I'll keep trying! 

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