Give Your Ice Cream Sandwiches A Textural Boost With This Frozen Fruit

Sometimes a dessert, other times a snack, ice cream sandwiches have a playful duality that makes them the perpetual summertime favorite. Their cold, sugary layers of sweetness cut through the sweltering heat, with a palm-sized portability to follow you anywhere. How can you not love them? You'll adore them even more with slices of frozen bananas in between, leveling up this childhood treat's texture and flavor in a surprisingly simple twist.

Freezing bananas can elevate this already versatile and creamy fruit even further. That signature starchy softness turns into a perfect in-between of frosty and creamy. As you sink your teeth into the ice cream sandwich, that texture is a flicker of excitement hidden in the usual familiarities. One layer of softness follows another, with the crumbly cookies slowly sinking into the velvety smooth ice cream, and that's when the chewy-soft frozen bananas pop up — a delightful surprise every time.

Frozen bananas also belong in ice cream sandwiches thanks to its ability to bridge the flavor gaps between the different ingredients. Its sweetness — both sugary and fresh at the same time — perfectly aligns with that of the ice cream. That very lightness also helps mellow out heavier flavors, so even if the cookies are cloyingly sweet, this fruit can still keep the overall taste profile balanced.

You never have to worry much when testing out creative ways to use frozen bananas since this fruit is extremely easy to work with. In ice cream sandwiches, it goes straight onto the bottom side of the cookies. Frozen solid together, they can then be topped with a scoop of ice cream and another cookie. Press everything together and let it freeze for several hours, much like you normally would.

The real fun begins when you experiment with all the different flavorings of banana ice cream sandwiches. Chocolate is always a good place to start, given what a gorgeous pairing it already is with bananas in countless other desserts. It could be as simple as using chocolate chip cookies, but you can also go the extra mile by dipping the cookies, or even the bananas themselves, in melted chocolate. Other sweet condiments, such as peanut butter and caramel sauce, also complement the banana extremely well. Add a small drizzle, and your ice cream sandwich is set to dazzle.

Banana ice cream is another obvious choice. Maybe you'll want to directly use a banana-flavored ice cream to match with the frozen pieces, or perhaps you'll chop up little pieces of banana and churn them right into your homemade ice cream. For those who want to cut back on dairy consumption, frozen banana is a full-on alternative for ice cream. Commonly referred to as "nice cream sandwiches," these recipes make the most of frozen bananas' frosty thickness and turn them into an ice-cream-adjacent base for other toppings.