A Cookable Feast

Mmmmm, soft serve – always a delicious summer treat, but not something you’d want to indulge in every day of the week (remember that Seinfeld episode where that non-fat frozen yogurt they were obsessed with turned out to be anything but? Ha, ha, classic.). Unless that soft serve happens to be totally made from fruit – hello, banana-cherry soft serve! This simple treat will satisfy even the most die-hard sweet tooth (fruit is nature’s candy, after all!) and is incredibly easy to make; it just requires a little preparation and planning ahead of time. I tried various combinations of freezing the fruit – first using frozen banana and fresh cherries; then wholly frozen fruit; and finally, fresh bananas and frozen cherries. The latter is the method I’m going with here; as much as I wanted to go with Method #2, the wholly frozen fruit, it was quite rough on my food processor.

Once you’ve blended the fruit, you’ll need to let it chill in the freezer to your desired consistency, but what that is is really up to you. An hour should be enough to sufficiently thicken and chill the mixture for you to enjoy it, but one-and-a-half to two hours may be what is needed to get the thickness closer to a soft-serve consistency.

-Two ripe bananas

-1 cup cherries, pitted, halved, and then frozen (freeze overnight)

-Honey and sliced almonds for garnish

Break bananas into smaller chunks and add with frozen cherries to a food processor or blender. Blend on high until mixture is well-blended (should take about one minute), stopping the food processor and scraping the sides of the mixing container as needed. Scoop prepared mixture into serving containers of your choice. Chill in the freezer for an hour, then check the soft serve’s consistency; keep in freezer for additional time as needed to thicken to desired consistency. Then enjoy your guilt-free treat! Makes two servings.