After graduating University I took a gap year and worked in Canada. It was an amazing experience and I met fantastic friends there. Despite being in Canada I ended up living with girls from Scotland, England and N Ireland. We soon became close friends and still meet up, regularly, fourteen years later. I’m just home from a fantastic weekend with the girls and this recipe was inspired by them!
As well as being housekeepers, for a hotel on Banff Avenue, a few of us worked in The Old Spaghetti Factory, Banff. When you buy an entree there the price includes bread and soup/salad before your meal and then spumoni ice-cream at the end. I had never heard of spumoni before working there, but I certainly served a ton of it by the time I left! 
Spumoni is a layered mixture of ice-cream, a bit like Neapolitan ice-cream, and usually consists of pistachio, cherry and chocolate or vanilla ice cream. I wanted to make a healthy version of this to share with Finn (and the girls!) I filled ikea lolly moulds with the three ice-cream flavours and then stuck a lolly stick in the bottom. This recipe should work well in any ice-cream mould or if you would prefer to serve slices of this dessert then try using this method from Eats Amazing.
Healthy Spumoni Nice Cream
Ingredients
- 4 frozen bananas (cut into chunks)
- 40 pistachios (shelled)
- 70 g (approx.7) cherries (pitted)
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
Instructions
- Add the pistachios to a blender and blitz until crumbed. Add a third of the frozen bananas and mix until combined and smooth.
- Fill the ice cream moulds a third of the way up ( I filled 5 ikea push lolly moulds) but this will obviously vary depending on the size of mould and size of bananas.)
- Add the cherries to the blender and blend, add a third of the bananas and mix until combine and smooth.
- Fill another third of the ice cream moulds with the cherry ice-cream.
- Add the remaining bananas and cocoa, mix until combined and smooth. Fill the ice-cream moulds.
- Freeze until solid. (I froze mine over night)
Recipe Notes
Return the ice-cream moulds to the freezer as you make each ice cream layer. (To keep the ice cream frozen)
When I visited Banff, I went to that Spaghetti Factory! Since I lived in Vancouver, I would go to the Spaghetti Factory all of the time. And the spumoni ice cream was one of my favorite parts about a meal there. (Also getting Spaghetti a la Homer. SO good)
This looks amazing! I definitely want to try this out!
Great memories, I wish I could go back to visit. One day!
I shared my own recipes for healthy ice lollies the other week, love this one, the mixture of colours is fab #foodpornthursday
Oh yes, I loved the sound of those – especially the watermelon ones!
The Old Spaghetti Factory is one of my favourite childhood places. Love spumoni…these look great! #foodpornthursdays
Thanks Jennifer ?
I really like your healthy versions of treats! And that flavour combo sounds really good (and looks great), I love pistachios, and with chocolate and cherry, nom…bet Finn loves those! 🙂
#foodpornthursdays
Thank you! Yes he does!
This is such a good idea! Just pinned the recipe 🙂 #foodpornthursdays
Thank you ?
What a clever idea to use fruits, this is so much healthier than what you would buy!! Thanks so much for linking up with #foodpornthursdays x
Thanks Becky 🙂
Another yummy treat, love your twist! That dessert is a highlight when we visit the Old Spaghetti Factory too. Thanks for sharing with us at #TryaBiteTuesday – see you next week!!!
Thanks Debra! See you next week, thanks for hosting 🙂
These look awesome and I am sure that they would go down a treat in our household.
Thanks Shari, it’s far too cold here to even think about these right now! So jealous of you in Australia 🙂