Sometimes, summer is weird. I made this recipe weeks ago, but I didn’t have a good spot for it on my editorial calendar, so I bumped it to August. August is good, I thought. The middle of August will be deathly hot and people will want a summery dessert. It’ll be perfect.
And then it reached a high of 67 today in my neck of the woods. And I’m currently wearing a cardigan. But maybe it’s hot where you are. Or maybe you’re one of those people who loves frozen desserts even when it’s cool. I happen to be one of those people who love hot tea even when I’m sweating, but to each their own.
At any rate, I can’t take credit for this recipe. I saved the instructions for the Chocolate-Dipped Frozen Banana Bites from The Kitchn last summer, after several purchases of the Dole Banana Dippers at the supermarket. I wasn’t sure this recipe would be good enough or easy enough to make it worth it, but it totally was. Not more supermarket banana bites for me.
The instructions from The Kitchn are spot on. I set out my ingredients as suggested: the bananas, the chocolate coating (chocolate chips and coconut oil which I melted in a double boiler on top of the stove), shredded coconut and chopped walnuts. From there, I sliced the bananas, dipped each one into the chocolate using a fork, tossed each banana piece into a topping, then placed it onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.
If that sounds easy, it’s because it was. It took a bit of time – I dipped 41 individual banana slices – but it’s not hard. I was pretty impressed with how well the chocolate adhered to the slices of banana and how well the toppings stayed on the chocolate. Toward the end, I did run low on toppings and my chocolate began to thicken and get harder to work with, so I dipped a bunch of plain chocolate banana bites. They’re not quite as pretty as the others (which are rather rustic to begin with), but they tasted great. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my large baking sheet slid perfectly over the drawer in our freezer. The next day I transferred all of the banana bites into a plastic container where they waited to be eaten, 2 or 3 at a time. I really enjoyed these because I found just a few to be satisfying. I will definitely be making them again, especially if the weather warms up and it actually feels like summer.
[…] else I make. I’m hoping to get to blueberries this week as well.2. Revisiting these Chocolate Covered Banana Bites. I haven’t made them again since last summer and, with all the heat this week, it seemed […]