By Ben Popple, founder of Mr Popple’s Chocolate · Recipe by Sophia (@fuellinghappy) · Published July 2026 · 4 min read

🍌 The scoop, in short

Frozen banana blended with nutty tahini and a whisper of vanilla, no ice cream maker required, then piled into a bowl and crowned with defrosted berries, fresh mint and shards of 88% raw chocolate. Second breakfast has never looked so good.

There is something wonderfully unbothered about nicecream. No custard to temper, no machine to churn, no refined sugar to speak of. Just frozen fruit and a good blender doing the heavy lifting while you get on with your morning.

This particular bowl comes from our brilliant friend Sophia, who whipped it up “for second breakfast, after a gentle run around the town I grew up in.” Honestly, that is the kind of morning we can all get behind. What a beautiful day it was looking to be, too, and this is precisely the sort of thing that makes one.

Want the 88% that tops it off?

Sophia finished hers with our intense, yacon-sweetened Atey Ate 88% bar.

Grab an Atey Ate 88% bar

Why banana nicecream is a bit of magic

Here is the trick that surprises everyone the first time: frozen banana, once blended, turns astonishingly creamy all on its own. No dairy, no cream, no faff. The banana brings natural sweetness and that soft-serve texture, the tahini lends a grown-up, nutty depth (and a lovely dose of good fats), and a little vanilla rounds the whole thing into something that tastes far more indulgent than three simple ingredients have any right to.

Then come the toppings, which is where it goes from breakfast to a bit of an event. Defrosted berries bleed their juices into the swirls, fresh mint keeps it bright, and shards of 88% dark chocolate add a proper bitter-rich crunch against the mellow banana.

Ingredients

Serves 1 to 2 · Prep 5 minutes (plus freezing the banana)

A note on amounts: these are our suggested proportions for Sophia’s idea. Adjust the tahini and vanilla to your own taste.

• 2 ripe bananas, sliced and frozen until solid
• 1 to 2 tbsp tahini
• ½ tsp vanilla extract (or the seeds of half a vanilla pod)
• A splash of plant-based milk, only if needed to help it blend

To top:

• A handful of berries, frozen then defrosted so they release their juices
• A few squares of Mr Popple’s Atey Ate 88% chocolate, chopped or shaved
• A sprig of fresh mint

The bananas are the whole game here, so freeze them when they are properly ripe and speckled, as that is when they are at their sweetest. Slicing before freezing makes life much kinder on your blender.

Method

1. Add your frozen banana slices, the tahini and the vanilla to a blender or food processor.
2. Blitz until thick, smooth and creamy. Be patient and scrape down the sides as you go. Add a small splash of plant milk only if it truly needs help, as too much will make it icy rather than creamy.
3. Scoop into a bowl (Sophia serves hers over a few slices of fresh banana and apple, which is lovely).
4. Top with your defrosted berries, a scattering of chopped 88% chocolate and a sprig of fresh mint.
5. Eat at once, while it is soft and swirly. No waiting required, which is rather the point.

💡 Ben’s tips

• No frozen banana ready? Chop and freeze for at least a couple of hours first; fresh banana simply will not whip up the same way.
• Tahini is bold, so start with one spoonful and taste before adding more.
• Fancy it firmer? Tip the blended nicecream into a tub and freeze for an hour for a scoopable finish.

Why the 88% works so well here

Sophia reached for our Atey Ate 88% (very dark chocolate bar) for good reason. It is an intense, properly dark raw chocolate, sweetened with yacon syrup rather than refined sugar, so its deep bitterness plays beautifully against the sweet banana instead of piling sweetness on sweetness. Because it is raw and stone-ground, it shaves into clean shards that hold their crunch even as the nicecream softens beneath them. It is entirely dairy-free, like everything we make, and with yacon doing the sweetening it keeps the whole bowl gently sugar-free.

If you have caught the frozen-pudding bug, our no-churn mint choc chip ice cream is another no-machine favourite worth a go.

With thanks

This sunny little recipe comes from our friend Sophia at @fuellinghappy, snapped after a morning run around her hometown. Her feed is a treasure trove of wholesome, plant-based, often-raw creations, and many of them are genuine works of art. Thank you, Sophia, for letting us share another one.

Top yours with the good stuff

Every bar is vegan, dairy-free, plastic-free and made with raw Peruvian cacao, perfect for shaving, chopping or eating straight from the wrapper.

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Published: July 2026