Banana and Chocolate Ice-Cream Sandwiches

This fun pudding is lip-smackingly good and great for all ages. It is also easy to assemble. I especially love making it with kids although every adult I know likes to behave like a child now and again too. The ‘ice cream’ is just banana mixed with cocoa powder and tastes amazing sandwiched between the golden crunchy spelt cookies.

MAKES 10

for the cookies
100g unsalted butter, softened
100g coconut sugar
1 large egg
225g spelt flour
50g dark chocolate (90% cocoa
solids), melted
for the banana chocolate ice cream
2 bananas, peeled, sliced and frozen
1 tbsp raw cacao powder

Put the butter and coconut sugar in a mixing bowl and, using electric beaters, beat together until pale and fluffy, then beat in the egg.

Add the flour and use a wooden spoon to incorporate it into the butter mixture. Once you have a cookie dough, bring it together with your hands. Divide it into two and roll into two sausage shapes. Wrap tightly in clingfilm and chill overnight in the fridge.

The next day, preheat your oven to 180°C/160°C fan/gas 4 and line two baking sheets with non-stick baking paper.
Cut the now firm dough into slices 6-7mm thick and lay them out on the baking sheets, spacing them apart a little. You should have enough to make 20 cookies. Pop the baking sheets into the hot oven and bake for 16-18 minutes until the edges are a lovely golden brown. Then remove and allow to cool to room temperature.

When the cookies have cooled, add the frozen banana slices and cocoa powder to a food processor and blitz until smooth. You’ll need to coax it a little by scraping the sides down until it gets going, but it only takes a couple of minutes to have a lovely smooth ice cream.

Take a cookie and spread a layer of ice cream on one side. Sandwich the ice cream in place with another cookie. Repeat until you have made 10 ice-cream sandwiches.

Use a spoon to drizzle the melted chocolate decoratively over half of each cookie. Leave the chocolate to set. If you’re not eating straight away, pop them into the freezer until you need them.

Recipe extracted from Live Well With Louise by Louise Thompson, published by Yellow Kite, £18.99
Photo credit: Andrew Burton