Gluten-free apple pie with vegan banana icecream recipe

Do you often have some ripe bananas, sat in your fruit bowl and just don´t know what to do with them? Well, you can use them to make this quick and easy vegan banana ice-cream! Serve on top of our lovely warm gluten-free apple pie for a really lovely Spring time dessert.

This recipe needs some advance planning, as you need to freeze some bananas to make the banana icecream. The best way is to peel your ripe banana, cut it into smaller chunks and pop into a bag or small container. Date and place in your freezer. When you are ready to make the icecream, you will need to take the frozen bananas out 10-20 minutes before to allow them to soften, this helps to make the icecream more “creamy”.

Our apple pie recipe is both vegan and gluten-free, so it’s a lovely treat for all of us. We use buckwheat flour (buckwheat is naturally gluten-free, despite it’s name!), but you could use chickpea flour or another gluten-free alternative if you prefer. If you are not gluten-free, all-purpose flour is also fine to use. For those people who are watching their calories, most of the calories in the apple pie are in the pastry base, so keep the portion small, and eat mindfully to enjoy the taste and textures! You could also decide to use only half of the pastry (only cover the top of the pie or use it only on the base), so you can still enjoy some pastry but not consume as many calories. The third option is to cut out the ground almonds and add a touch more flour instead.

We love to serve the pie warm, straight from the oven, so the banana icecream starts to melt a little. Yummy! It’s also great served cold.

Gluten-free apple pie with vegan banana icecream recipe

Serves: 8
Calories in the apple pie: 1797 total, 224 per serving
Calories in icecream: 432 total, 54 per serving

Ingredients:

For the apple pie:

Pastry base and topping

60g coconut oil
150g ground almonds (almond meal) *
150g gluten-free flour blend (e.g. buckwheat flour) plus more for rolling (or sub rice flour, or plain all-purpose flour if not gluten-free)
14 tablespoons water

Apple pie filling

6 cooking apples, core removed, peeled and sliced
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp rice syrup or other liquid sweetener
4 tbsp water
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp corn flour
4 tbsp rice milk

For the icecream
4 large frozen bananas
Small amount of non-dairy milk (100 ml)

Directions:

Remember to remove the bananas from the freezer 10-20 minutes before you want to make the icecream.

Make the pastry. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl. Add the water tablespoon by tablespoon. You want to create a dough, that is firm and not runny. Split into two portions.

Put half the pastry mixture into the bottom of your cake tin or tray, pushing it into the base and edges. Place in the fridge and leave for an hour or two. Place the other half to one side.

Now make the pie filling. Place the apples, lemon juice, rice syrup, into a pan with 4 tbsp water and rice milk. Bring the water to a boil then turn down the heat to low. Add the vanilla extract and ground cinnamon. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Preheat the oven to medium.

In a small bowl, make a roux with the corn flour and tablespoon of water (combine the corn flour and water together so it starts to look like a paste). Add into the apple mixture and stir well. The sauce should start to thicken.

Pour the apple mix onto the pastry base.

Roll out the remaining pasty, cut into slices and layer (like lattice) over the top of the pie.

Place the pie into the preheated oven on the middle shelf and cook for 30 minutes, or until the top starts to brown.

Meanwhile, make the banana icecream. Add the frozen banana pieces into a food processor (or blender) and blitz. Add a little dairy-free milk to create a creamy soft ice-cream. The more milk you add, the wetter (more slush-like) the mixture will become. If needed, you can pop the mixture back into the freezer for a few minutes to become more solid before serving.

Remove the apple pie from the oven and allow it to sit for a few minutes. Cut and serve in slices, with a scoop of the banana icecream on the top.

Plant-based food at La Crisalida health and wellbeing retreats

Here at the retreat we serve a plant-based menu, most of which is gluten-free. Dessert nights are always popular! Read more about the food that we serve here and for more plant-based vegan recipe ideas check out our blog.