“Ice Cream” Cupcakes

Oh no guests are coming and you don’t have time to make dessert! Or maybe your child comes up to you and tells you it is one of their beloved dolls or stuffed animals birthday. This always happens in our house, it seems like every week another one of my daughter Blabla’s is having a birthday. This is a quick, easy, healthy dessert or treat that will work with stuff you have on hand. Don’t have the stuff on hand to make the chocolate cups, you can always melt chocolate chips. Don’t have frozen bananas and berries, use that pint of So Delicious Ice Cream you have hiding in the back of your freezer.  Like many of my recipes/posts it is meant to be inspirational and a guide. I encourage you to play with flavors and have fun! We made ours with strawberries and blueberries for a pink and blue theme as we enjoyed ours to celebrate our blog turning 1, or course that was just an excuse I used to make these delightful “Ice Cream” Cupcakes! What flavor/combo would you make?

If you aren’t making these last-minute you can always make the chocolate cupcake cups ahead of time and store in the freezer. You can also freeze the Banana Berry “Ice Cream” ahead of time. Party planning, I like to make the “Ice Cream” a few hours ahead of time and freeze it in a pastry bag standing in a large plastic cup in the freezer or zip-loc freezer bags for a to just pull out and squeeze into cupcakes right before serving.

“Ice Cream” Cupcakes

Makes 8 cups

Chocolate Cupcake Cups

1 c cocoa powder

1/2 c coconut oil, melted

1/4 c raw agave

Banana Berry “Ice Creams”

1/2 c So Delicious Vanilla Coconut Milk

3 medium frozen bananas, cut into chunks

1 c frozen berries (made one batch with strawberries, one batch with blueberries)

Pinch of pink himalayan salt, optional

Sprinkles or toppings of choice, optional

Made 2 batches of Banana Berry “Ice Cream” one using strawberries one using blueberries. One batch will be enough to fill 8 chocolate cupcakes. If you want them really full, want to freeze and scoop later, or want swirls make 2 batches and you can freeze any extras to enjoy later.

Whisk or use an electric mixer to mix together cocoa, coconut oil, and agave until smooth. Divide the mixture between 8 muffin tins with foil liners or silicone muffin molds. The paper cupcake liners won’t hold as well and can fold in when pushing the chocolate up the sides. Using the bake of a spoon push the chocolate up the sides of the liners/molds until almost to the top. Making sure there is still chocolate in the bottom, and no holes, this shouldn’t be an issue but just double-check. Don’t be afraid to put to much chocolate up the sides, it will stay but some excess will slowly run back to the bottom. You don’t have to be too careful with this step just make sure you get enough around all sides to have a nice solid shell. The bottom will look rounded out. Place in the freezer while making the ice cream.

In a Vitamix, high-speed blender, or food processor add milk, frozen banana chunks, frozen berries, and pinch of salt in that order. Blend until thick and creamy, adding a little more milk if needed but you want it to be thick. I made a batch in my Vitamix and a batch in my food processor and didn’t add extra milk to either batch, it did take a little longer with the food processor but was thick and creamy.

Remove prepared chocolate cups from the freezer, and remove wrappers or pop out of silicone molds. Spoon ice cream into each chocolate cup. If you want layers you can place a pastry bag or plastic zip-loc in a large cup and spoon ice cream in, snip the corner if using a zip loc bag and pipe, alternating into the prepared chocolate cups. Holding at the top of the bag so the ice cream doesn’t melt. You can also spoon a little of each flavor and swirl as shown in one of the photos. Top with sprinkles or desired toppings. Enjoy right away or place in the freezer to enjoy later.

When I heard about So Delicious and Go Dairy Free having another contest, this time a Fast and Fresh Dairy-Free Time Trials Contest, I got excited as I realized the post I knew I wanted to enter, this one that I was posting on my 1 year blog “birthday”, was still in the entry period!  Check out other entries in this contest using the contest link above.