Vanessa Lee
An easy, festive, AND healthy treat to snack on this Halloween.
It’s officially spooky season! Due to COVID, everyone’s Halloween traditions will inevitably look a little different this year. For example, we probably won’t be seeing the long standing tradition of trick-or-treaters knocking on our doors this season like we do every year. But, that doesn’t mean we can’t make new traditions or keep the festivity alive! If you’re looking for some healthy, easy, and Halloween inspired treats to try this Halloween, I have a perfect one just for you. Join me as I try out the Halloween Banana Popsicles recipe!
Before we get into the full recipe, here are some side notes in how I approached this process. First and foremost, have I told you that I’m #ballingonabudget? College has been real and your girl is in desperate need to save however she can, so I bought all of my ingredients at my local qfc with the cheapest brand of ingredients I could find. I was able to buy all the ingredients that I needed under $13! Lastly, I am the type of person that likes to stray away from recipes and not strictly follow the directions given to me, so you will see that a lot here. Feel free to do the same or to follow the recipe exactly as it says if you wish to.
Now let’s get started!
- Bananas: Because I am #ballingonabudget I opted for small-medium bananas for the recipe because they were cheaper. However, in the recipe I followed it asks you to get large sized bananas. For this ingredient, I recommend that you do stick with getting large size bananas over small if you can (I will explain why later).
- Greek Yogurt: I used total plain nonfat yogurt as a healthier alternative, specifically Fage’s total 0% Nonfat Greek Yogurt.
- Chocolate Chips: I bought semi-sweet chocolate chips by simple truth organic semi-sweet chocolate chips. The size was larger than I expected but considering how big of a sweet tooth I am, I am definitely not complaining.
- Peanut Butter: I chose the creamy, no added sugar peanut butter by Jif.
For the equipment, I used the following:
- Platter: I used a random platter I found laying around the kitchen . Since we won’t be baking and we’re just putting our product in the freezer, feel free to use any type of surface to put your bananas on.
- Cutting board and knife: For cutting the bananas!
- Aluminium foil: The recipe said baking sheets but I didn’t have that so I opted for just aluminum foil. This should help you avoid having the frozen bananas stick to the surface you’re putting them on.
- Plastic spoons: Ideally you want popsicle sticks but I didn’t have those to my disposal and I didn’t want to go out and buy more popsicle sticks cause #ballingonabudget, so i used plastic spoons I had in the house already. I would say, these worked really well!
- Bowl: For your yogurt and peanut butter.
Now for the recipe!
First, I cut the bananas in half, some in the long way and some horizontally. After, I put the plastic spoons into the bananas. Unfortunately not all of my small to medium sized bananas were not wide enough for the spoon to go through. Next, I put the cut bananas with plastic spoons on a platter with aluminum foil and placed it into the freezer for about 30 minutes.
When the time was up, I took the frozen bananas out and rolled them in Greek Yogurt. Not all bananas survived this process. One of them broke because it wasn’t frozen long enough, so i would recommend leaving in the freezer for an extra few minutes if you can. If there were some missing or bulky spots I just used a knife to apply more or smooth the yogurt over. Finally, before I put them back into the freezer for one hour, I placed two mini chocolate chips for each of the “ghost” bananas.
Before I took the bananas back out, I put a few scoops of peanut butter in a bowl and microwaved it for 30 seconds. Then, using a spoon, I drizzled the melted peanut butter on the bananas that were cut horizontally to make the “bandages.” Finally, I put chocolate chips for the eyes and placed it back into the freezer to freeze overnight.
The next morning, I took the platter out of the freezer and let them sit out for about 10 minutes before digging in! I would say, don’t bite the popsicles at first because I made that mistake. Like any popsicle fresh out of the freezer, it is solid hard and due to my excitement, my teeth definitely took it hard at first.
If I were to rate it from 10/10, I would say this tasted a solid 8/10, granted I made this myself so inevitably I am biased. The yogurt covering was more sour than I thought it would be but I was pleasantly surprised with the taste of the frozen yogurt mixed with the bananas. To give some more unbiased perspective, when my older brother tried it, he was not too fond of it. He said, and I quote, “my favorite part is the banana,” which of course, I had no part in making. He has a more sweet tooth than I so the fact that I used plain greek yogurt did not help my case. If that’s the case for you as well, I suggest following the recipe of mixing some powdered sugar with your yogurt or using a sweeter/flavored yogurt alternative. I chose to leave it out simply because #ballingonabudget and I wanted to make the healthiest version of the recipe as I can.
Now, would I recommend others to try this recipe?
Yes I would! Not only is it easy and Halloween inspired, it is also healthy! This recipe has a lot of waiting because you have to freeze the bananas a few times, but if you were to take these waiting periods out, I would argue that the time it takes to make this recipe is short as well. Additionally, I used the waiting periods to do other work, so the time passed by fast. If you still don’t think you’re up for the challenge, l hope what I am about to say will change your mind. As much as I wish I could cook or bake, those skills are definitely not my forte. That’s why I chose to try out a recipe that required minimum effort of craftsmanship in the kitchen and if I am able to somewhat succeed in making this recipe, I have full faith that you can as well!
Link to the recipe I followed: https://www.wellplated.com/halloween-banana-popsicles/