April 24, 2013
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Do you love ice cream sandwiches? Silly question. Right.
Who doesn’t love ice cream sandwiches?! After all, what’s not to love? A layer of ice cream sandwiched between two cookies. Count me in!
Depending on where you live, you might be able to put these babies inside your child’s lunch box.. Ok, maybe not in August. But that’s ok, we’ve got you covered with loads of ideas there in our plans.
What if I told you, you can quickly and easily make your very own homemade ice cream sandwiches with just 3 ingredients? I’m positive that even the pickiest of eaters will love this!
To make them, all you do is mash up bananas with some crunchy peanut butter (or creamy, depending on preference) and spread the mixture between two graham cracker squares.
You can stop there and enjoy the snack as is, or you can pop them in the freezer for 6 hours or so. Once they have frozen, and you take your first bite, you won’t believe how much the frozen bananas taste like ice cream!
Along those same lines, if you are an ice cream fanatic (like yours truly) I have a healthier alternative for you to try. Freeze a couple of peeled bananas, and once completely frozen, throw them in your food processor. All you need is bananas…nothing else.
The bananas take on a whole new flavor and texture, that you have to just try them to believe it!. You get a serious ice cream fix, but with a much healthier alternative.
So toss out the box of ice cream sandwiches you have in the freezer and replace them with this healthier version. You still get a great tasting dessert, except it is dairy and cholesterol free, and contains no added sugar.
Freeze these overnight, and stick them in your child’s lunchbox in the morning, directly on an ice pack. They will have thawed a little bit by lunchtime, which makes them the perfect consistency, in my opinion.
You can stick the entire lunch container in the freezer and pull it out right before your child heads out the door for school. I prefer stainless steel containers, for frozen foods, since they are better temperature conductors but any lunch box will work!
Monkey Ice-Cream Sandwiches
Ingredients
- 2 ripe bananas
- 2 tablespoons heaping crunchy peanut butter
- 8 full graham cracker sheets makes 16 squares
Instructions
- Peel the bananas and place in a small bowl.
- Measure two heaping tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter and add to the bowl of bananas.
- Mash the two ingredients together with a fork, until creamy.
- Break the graham cracker sheets in half and on one half spread the peanut butter/banana mixture. Top with remaining graham cracker square, making a sandwich.
- Lay ice cream sandwiches on a baking sheet and freeze for 4-6 hours of overnight. After that, transfer into a container or freezer bag.
Nutrition
*1 monkey ice-cream sandwich= 19 carbohydrates
Corinne
The Monkey Ice Cream Sandwiches are amazing! I will be opening a daycare/preschool in a few months and while I am still in the construction/research phase, I have been looking for recipes that I can prepare in advance for the kids that are nutritious and can be made with natural/organic ingredients! These will be a great snack for the children and they wont even know it is (mostly) good for them!
MOMables
Awesome! I am so glad this recipe will be helpful. In case you need a nut free alternative, it works great with non-nut butters too!
Sarah
We make this with vanilla chocolate chunk Greek yogurt and peanut butter.. the BEST!
tricia
Do you use a specific brand of graham cracker? We tried a gluten free one but they were very hard for my 2 year to break up. The consistency wasn’t that tasty.
MOMables
Tricia, I usually buy Annie’s organic graham crackers. Whole foods has an organic brand without the gunk too. You can also find them on amazon.
carolina
I’ll try these sandwiches this summer (I hope I’ll find peanut butter here)!
Netty
These were such a hit with my kids…they are great for lunches or for my boys, I gave them to them after their baseball game as a snack. I did add some pecans and mini chocolate chips to it.
Thanks so much for this recipe…I’m sure we will be making these a lot this summer.