Bananas Foster Milkshake

I’m sure you can tell I’m sort of in love with bananas foster. I’m from New Orleans, so I guess you can say I’m pretty hooked to the stuff. I don’t really remember the first time I had it, but I know it was love at first bite!

I’m also greatly in love with ice cream…I gave it up for a month for a personal junk food detox to prepare me for the 10 week weight loss challenge I’m participating in. 🙂 Before my personal little detox, I used to have a bowl almost daily. It was low-fat ice cream, so no guilt right? Psh, unfortunately those 150 calories daily added up, and I blame the hot summer for the crazy weight gain I’ve experienced. Darn you hot summers and refreshing ice cream!! 🙂

So, naturally when I heard that Foodbuzz and Lactaid were hosting a smoothie/milkshake recipe contest, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to enter my idea: a bananas foster milkshake. I know milkshakes are a huge diet no-no, but hey, I can practice portion control here, right?

After submitting my idea to Foodbuzz, I found out that my idea was one of the 12 chosen to participate in this contest. 🙂 Wahoo!!

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering what the prize for this fabulous contest is, right? It’s a trip to this year’s Foodbuzz Festival!! So, cross your fingers for me, y’all. This would be an amazing opportunity for me, and I think I would just go nuts if I won (in a good way, I promise).

Now, since this is a contest for Lactaid, I couldn’t just make any milkshake. Rather, this milkshake had to be lactose-free AND unique! Quite a challenge, no?

Now, I knew Lactaid made milk, because I was graciously given a coupon to get a Lactaid milk product for free to make this recipe happen. However, my two other worries were ice cream (of course, a milkshake staple) and butter (a main ingredient in authentic bananas foster).

After perusing Lactaid’s site, I found that Lactaid makes an ice cream product. Bonus? A store really close to my house carries all Lactaid products, so the products are easy to find. If it’s in my town, it’s probably in your town. Yay for availability! Also, Lactaid products are very reasonable in price. I know not everyone can pay mega bucks for groceries, so it’s wonderful that Lactaid keeps costs fairly low for their products. 🙂

Now, for the butter, I took a risk and used a little bit of oil with water rather than butter. I thought this would work well, because I interchange oil and butter in most of my cooking, so why not? Thankfully, the flavors worked out, the shake ended up not tasting oily, and it worked beautifully in making the infamous bananas foster sauce. 🙂

On a side note, I have to hand it to the folks at Lactaid. When I was a kid, I think I was a little lactose intolerant (never was diagnosed). I used to have major stomach pains after drinking milk, and the sad thing was, I used to drink chocolate milk anyway. I know…you think I must be crazy! To me, the pain was totally worth it. I was completely addicted to chocolate milk!  And yes, while I had stomach cramps, I like to think my addiction to milk had to contribute to my 5’10” frame. Haha! Now, don’t worry…the good news for me is sometime in my teenage years, I grew out of the intolerance I had. Yay!

However, not everyone ends up so lucky. So, it’s good to know that those who are lactose intolerant can still enjoy cow’s milk now, get the same nutrients from regular milk, and hey, they can even make milkshakes, root beer floats, enjoy sundaes…the list is endless!

Lactaid has really taken it upon themselves to make lactose intolerance less daunting. They have a huge array of lactose-free products, and offer a new website, called MooVision, which is to bring awareness to lactose intolerance and to showcase their product line. They have some fun features on the site too, which include:

• Moolah!, a trivia contest about lactose-free milk (you can win Amazon.com gift cards here!)
• Gourmoo cookoff, which is a competition with recipes featuring lactose-free milk
• Moo News, which is a mockumentary style news show for milk lovers

So, using Lactaid’s ice cream and milk products, I came up with this milkshake. I’m sure you’re wondering if there’s a difference in consistency or taste with these products. Good news peeps…I really didn’t notice a difference, which is awesome.

The verdict? The taste of this shake came out perfectly, as expected. 🙂 Heck, bananas foster is typically served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream anyway. Why not combine it into a tasty drink? You might noticed that I didn’t make traditional bananas foster with alcohol. I did this, because it’s not a huge flavor difference to me, and because of the lack of alcohol, this becomes a shake you can make for the kids, too! 🙂

And, in case you’re wondering, I only drank 12 oz. of the stuff. This shake made it really hard to practice portion control too…so tasty! I kind of don’t want to calculate the calories, but in hindsight, with a 48 oz. pitcher next to me, I could have done much worse damage.

Disclosure: I received a free sample of Lactaid milk for this recipe, and this recipe serves as my entry for a contest to attend the Foodbuzz Festival.

Bananas Foster Milkshake
Source: an original

Ingredients:

• 3 bananas, sliced
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 tbsp. oil
• appx. 1/4 cup water
• 12 oz. Lactaid milk (we used 2% reduced fat)
• 1 quart Lactaid vanilla ice cream

Directions:

• Place oil in a medium skillet and bring the heat to medium heat.
• Add brown sugar and cinnamon. Stir and slowly add water until it forms a sauce. Lower the heat to medium-low heat.
• Add the sliced bananas to the pan, stirring occasionally.  Cook this down for about 5 minutes. You know it’s done when you can smell it and the bananas are really soft!
  
• Remove the bananas and place them in a bowl in a larger bowl with an ice bath to cool down. Reserve the sauce in the skillet.
• Once the bananas foster has cooled, blend the milk and ice cream together until well blended. Then add the bananas foster and blend. If you think the shake is too thick for your liking, you can add some milk, a little at a time.
• To serve, drizzle bananas foster sauce in a glass, pour in the shake and drizzle more sauce on top. Enjoy!

Makes appx. 48 ounces

Thanks again to the folks at Foodbuzz and Lactaid for allowing me to participate in this contest. 🙂