Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream

10 min to make this melt in your mouth Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream that your toddler (and family) will love. Naturally sweetened so it won't spike blood sugar like other ice creams.

Ice cream is one of my guilty pleasures. Especially during the late spring and summer months when the days are warmer and longer.

But as you might already know, traditional ice cream is filled with simple sugars. And much more than you would find in non-frozen sweets.

That's because the cold of the ice cream inhibits the sweet taste so manufacturers need to add a lot more sugar in order for the final frozen product to be tasty.

But luckily there is a simple and easy way to avoid that. And probably cheaper. Homemade Ice Cream! This one being peanut butter and chocolate 🙂 One of my favorite combinations!

And this is perfect for toddlers because they get to enjoy a treat without us having to deal with the sugar rush.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should avoid store-bought ice cream altogether.

I'm simply saying you can easily make your own healthier version at home that you can serve to your kids (and adults) when in need of a quick and refreshing dessert or snack.

Jump to:

• Nutrition And Ingredients
• At What Age Can Babies Eat This?
• How To Make It
• Tips & Tricks
• Possible Variations
• More Ice Cream Recipes & Summer Snacks Like This
• Recipe

Nutrition And Ingredients

Bananas

• Use the ripest bananas you have at home because they also have a higher sugar content so they are sweeter and add to the overall sweet taste of the ice cream. If you use underripe bananas you will need to add a bit more sweetener

• A great source of potassium and carbohydrates that provide you with lots of energy

Peanut butter

• Only buy 100% peanut butter and not the varieties that have added palm oil (or any other for that matter) or salt

• If you are making your own peanut butter, also make sure that you make it from unsalted peanuts and don't add any oil to the butter

• Peanut butter like other nuts and nut butters is high in calories and fats. But it's the "good" kind of fats that can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases

Whole Milk

• Most of my recipes have whole milk as an ingredient because I mainly make them for my 2 year old son, but it is easily substituted with a lower fat version plant-based version

• It is high in protein, fat, calcium and calories so a great ingredient to use when needing to boost up the calorie and nutrition content of toddler meals

Natural Sweetener

• Natural sweeteners do not spike blood sugar like regular table sugar

• You can use agave syrup, date syrup or honey (for babies over 1 years old)

Raw Cocoa Powder

• This is what gives the ice cream its chocolaty taste. Just make sure you use the raw unsweetened version to get the maximum health benefits.

• Contains great phytonutrients that have strong antioxidants and therefore can support heart health.

• Not suitable for babies under 1 do to the caffeine content

At What Age Can Babies Eat This?

We would only give this to children above 1 years of age because of sweetness of the ice cream and caffeine in the cacao powder.

You could omit natural sweetener and cacao powder and then you have a banana peanut butter ice cream for a baby and add the rest of the ingredients for toddlers, older children and adults.

How To Make It

Prepare the bananas. Cut the bananas into small pieces and freeze for about 2 hours.

Make the basic mixture. Take the bananas out of the freezer and put into a blender. Leave for about 5 minutes so that they just slightly thaw. Add the milk and peanut butter and blend into a creamy mixture.

Give it some flavor. Add the sweetener and raw cocoa powder until you get a nice chocolatey color.

Serve or freeze. Pour into a freezing tray of choice and eat right away or freeze. If you freeze, make sure you take it out of the freezer about 20 minutes before you want to eat it. Because this is a "natural" water-based ice cream it needs a little time to soften before it's ready to eat. You'll need a much higher fat content to make an ice cream that is soft straight out of the freezer.

You can serve this in a bowl or on a cone.

Tips & Tricks

Freeze your bananas beforehand. The trick to getting a really creamy homemade ice cream texture is freezing the bananas beforehand. Once they are frozen, when you take them out and blend they will leave this thick and creamy texture that you can add pretty much anything to for a delicious ice cream.

Don't over-blend. When adding the flavoring ingredients to the ice cream, make sure not to over-blend the mixture. If you blend it too long the heat from the blender might thaw the bananas too much and instead of the creamy and thick ice cream texture you will be left with a liquid one.

If adding solid bits, gently mix them in. Sometimes I like to add some chopped up nuts or fruit like berries to the ice cream. The trick when adding these is to gently mix them in with a spatula rather then blending. If you blend them in you'll probably loose the creaminess of the ice cream.

Possible Variations

Make it dairy-free. In case you want a dairy-free ice cream, simply substitute the whole milk for a plant-based option. I'd definitely recommend using calcium-fortified plant-based milks here if serving to small kids to make sure they get their calcium intake.

Make more flavors. If you want the ice cream to be more interesting, you can add the date syrup to the banana-milk-peanut butter mixture, blend and take out half of the mixture. Then add the raw cocoa powder to the other one. Just use half the amount mentioned in the recipe. This way you will have 2 different ice creams with the same effort and time spent making them.

Give it your own touch. I already mentioned that sometimes I like adding chopped up nuts or berries to the ice cream. You can do the same by adding anything that comes to your mind. Just remember - gently mix it in.

More Ice Cream Recipes & Summer Snacks Like This

• Vegan Strawberry Banana Nice Cream

• Dark Chocolate Banana Popsicles

• Blueberry Yogurt Popsicle

Recipe