Pumpkin Spice Nice Cream

This pumpkin spice nice cream, or ice cream, uses frozen bananas to create a delicious soft-serve pumpkin ice cream. The bananas give the recipe for nice cream a natural sweetness, so there doesn't have to be any added sugars!

I'm a "nice cream" convert. What is nice cream? It's what people call ice cream that is made from frozen bananas. It's called nice cream because it gets its creaminess and sweetness from frozen ripe bananas. That means there's no need to add cream and usually no need for sweeteners if your bananas are ripe enough!

The great thing about nice cream is you can make SO MANY flavors of it. There's chocolate, peanut butter chocolate, vanilla, and lately (now that it's fall, y'all), I've been making this pumpkin spice banana nice cream. It's so good and filled with fall flavors. May as well just eat this while sporting a cozy scarf and wearing a sweater while leaves crunch under your feet.

Ingredients:

• Frozen and sliced ripe/overripe bananas
• Pumpkin puree
• Pumpkin pie spice (homemade or store-bought)
• Vanilla extract
• Maple syrup (optional)

Ripe or regular bananas?

For this pumpkin nice cream recipe, ripe or overripe bananas work best. As bananas ripen, they get sweeter. If you have a lot of natural sweetness from the banana, you shouldn't need to add much (if any) sweetener. That's why you want to freeze bananas that are very ripe to use in this banana ice cream.

Can you taste the banana in banana ice cream?

I always think you can a bit. However, for this pumpkin nice cream, the addition of the pumpkin, pumpkin spice, and vanilla balance it out so that you barely notice it.

Tips for making the nice cream:

• Slice your bananas before freezing them! That will help them blend so much better.
• Listen to the tip about blending your bananas first before adding the other ingredients. That also helps make your blender happy and allows all the ingredients to blend together better.
• Use a high powered blender. This is the one we have and LOVE it. We use it for so many things. Frozen margaritas, smoothies, soups, etc. Worth every penny. If you don't have a high power blender and yours isn't doing the trick, you can also try using a food processor.
• If your ice cream isn't blending together in your blender, try stopping and pushing down with the handle of a spoon and blending again. You may need to do this several times. You can also add a tiny splash of milk to help it along if needed. Just add a splash to start!
• You CAN put it in a dish and stick it in the freezer for a bit to firm up slightly. However, I wouldn't leave it in there more than 15 minutes or so. It hardens a lot, and after it's been in the freezer for a bit, you have to let it thaw again before scooping. That's why I prefer to eat it right after I've made it or within 15 minutes of being in the freezer.
• If you DO put it in the freezer for too long, you can let it thaw a bit and also throw it back into your blender to try to get it smooth again.

Topping ideas:

• Shredded coconut
• Chopped pecans
• Mini chocolate chips or shaved chocolate
• Chocolate or regular sprinkles
• Drizzle of chocolate syrup or caramel
• Pumpkin seeds

How to make:

The first step is to make sure you have some sliced, ripe, frozen bananas in your freezer. Then take them out and add them to your blender. Blend the bananas until they are all broken up and starting to get a bit smooth.

Next, add the pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, and vanilla extract and blend again.

You may need to stop the blender and press down on the mixture with a spatula or spoon several times to get it all blended and incorporated. If you need help, add a tiny splash of almond or other milk to get it mixing again.

Once it's all blended, take a spoon and taste for sweetness. If it's not sweet enough to your taste, add a bit of maple syrup and blend again to combine.

Serve immediately, or put in the freezer for 15 minutes before scooping.