Nana Nice Creams

As you may be aware, I love ice cream.

I’m also pretty fond of banana and I have been trying to eat kind of healthier recently. So it was perfect timing when I found these strange little Nana Nice Creams in Iceland this week, originally I grabbed them for myself and my love of the banana but I grabbed a few for my husband too. Mr.1T isn’t all that fond of bananas but his lactose intolerance has really ramped up recently, to the point where doctors have been testing for Coeliac disease  amongst other allergies. Nana Nice Cream is perfect for him right now as not only is it dairy free but also soya, gluten and nut free, has no added sugars and is one of your 5 a day.

Choconana

Strangely there isn’t just a banana flavoured Nana Nice Cream, so I went for the next best option: chocolate. It looked quite icy and to begin with felt it too, the tub does say to allow to soften slightly before serving but 1) who does that? and 2) it’s 30 degrees today, if it ain’t soft in the time it took me to photograph it, it ain’t gonna get much softer.

It melted but never quite reached the creamy ice cream stage instead only achieving a strange mix of an ice cream and a sorbet stage – it’s obvious from the texture to me after years of fruity sorbets and trying the Frill and Tesco frozen smoothies, that a large portion was fruit.

In my tub the overwhelming flavour was banana. Delicious banana don’t get me wrong but not much chocolate and what I could taste wasn’t chocolate chocolate as such but a lot more like the Nakd cocoa flavours. Unsurprising considering the entire ingredients list for the tub is: Apple (ay??) Banana, Organic Sunflower Oil, Avocado, Dates, Cacao (5%). So my taste buds are working!

Anyway that was my tub, Mr 1.Ts had more of the cocoa less of the banana which he was happy about! If you’ve had a Nakd bar or Nakd Bits or Nibbles then the Nana Nice Cream was much the same as those, it seems no two tubs have quite the same flavour as I know my banana hating husband would not have enjoyed mine at all! In fact, I reckon if Nakd decided to make an ice cream it would taste a hell of a lot like these!

7/10 

 Banilla 

Somehow Banilla looked even less appetising than Choconana! And despite the appearance of what look like little vanilla flecks throughout the “nice cream”, don’t expect any vanilla scent – the only way you’d smell more banana is if you shoved one up your nose.

Looks can be deceieving, in photos it may look a creamy shade of vanilla but in the cold light of day it’s a greeny yellow and as it “melts” it literally begins to look like unripe mushed up banana.

If it sounds like I’m not impressed it’s because I wasn’t. This time round Mr.1T got all the banana so he wasn’t a fan either and mine wasn’t as banana-y as Choconana. Instead of the banana there wasn’t a vanilla flavour though, oh no, there was just a nothing flavour. Plain and boring, with the odd burst of very strong banana for me and literally nothing but banana for him. If it wasn’t packaged I’d have had a job convincing him I hadn’t just served him one soggy premature banana. And doesn’t that sound tasty!

I liked the banana but vanilla it ain’t.

Rating: 4/10 

Strawbana

Finally, Strawbana. The photo doesn’t tell the whole truth as it looks far pinker there than it did in real life, instead looking once again pretty much like mushed up frozen banana. It didn’t smell as strongly of banana as Banilla but it didn’t smell much of strawberry either!

And again, it had the same strangely un-melting texture, it’s super thick like concrete and ends up with a creamy consistency in your mouth but in the tub, even today in 27 degree sunshine, in the time I took faffing around with photos it barely melted.

I was annoyed to begin with, once again it tasted only of banana and although I never thought that’d be something I complain about, strawberry and banana are usually a winning combination. This time the banana flavour thinned out though and allowed a strawberry to appear. Now it’s not particularly strong and not the best strawberry I’ve tasted (it reminded me of strawberries grown and picked out of season) but it did taste like strawberry as well as banana so it’s already superior to the vanilla! We’ll pretend that if I were blind tasting I’d have guessed only banana isn’t true…

Rating: 6/10 

These aren’t bad, I’ve tried to rate fairly and ignore the fact banana ice cream is one of my all time favourites but if banana ain’t your thing, these definitely won’t be (although I would question why you’re buying a dessert made from bananas…)

If you’re one of the poor bastards suffering from a multitude of intolerance and allergies this is worth a shot for sure – no added sugar and dairy, soya, gluten and nut free – pretty much everyone can eat it and it’s 1 of your 5 a day!