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A frozen banana goes into the machine; banana soft serves comes out in a minute. Photo © Corinna Gissemann | Fotolia. |
| WHAT IT IS: Soft serve frozen fruit made in the Yonanas machine. |
| WHY IT’S DIFFERENT: No added sugar for a lower calorie, healthful soft serve. |
WHY WE LOVE IT: Delicious and a way to get everyone to eat more fruit. Make Yonanas, fruit and granola parfaits for breakfast, lunch, desserts and snacks. |
| WHERE TO BUY IT: On Amazon.com or the Yonanas website. |
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Freeze the fruit and add to the chute. In a minute, you’ll have soft-serve consistency “sorbet.” Photo courtesy Yonanas.
Make fruit, granola and soft serve parfaits for breakfast, lunch or snacks. Photo © Urbanlight | Fotolia. |
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Make Sugar-Free Sorbet With Yonanas
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When we started THE NIBBLE nine years ago, we almost immediately began to receive queries sorbet made without added sugar.* They continue to arrive.
Last year, one finally appeared—or at least, it halfway appeared—from Clemmy’s Ice Cream, a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week. The line is sugar-free and lactose-free. Clemmy’s Orange Creme combines orange sorbet and vanilla ice cream for a Creamsicle-style experience.
Now, you can make your own 100% fruit soft serve “sorbet” without added sugar, thanks to the Yonanas Frozen Treat Maker. This specialty soft serve machine was developed by Eileen McHale, a fitness-conscious Floridian who wanted a delicious, creamy, healthful and low-cost frozen treat. Her creation does a terrific job.
Yonanas† almost instantly transforms your favorite fruits—banana, berries, mango, pineapple, the whole fruit department—into a silky-smooth frozen confection.
The frozen fruit—pre-frozen or frozen by you—goes into the chute (see photo below). It emerges as thick, creamy soft serve-like “sorbet.”‡
The only limitation to the recipe is what can be frozen and blended together. We particularly loved making:
- Mango, mango pineapple and coconut pineapple
- Peach with moscato (freeze the wine into cubes and toss it down the chute with the fruit)
- Raspberry with red wine
There’s an entire recipe book of ideas.
Easy Peasy
The compact Yonanas machine is well worth the cost (list $49.99) and the space. It’s not only easy to make frozen treats; it’s easy to clean the machine. Everything but the motor portion goes right into the dishwasher.
- PICK YOUR FRUIT. You can use frozen fruit from the market, or freeze any fresh fruit for 24 hours or longer.
- NO MORE WASTED FRUIT. Fruit need never get overripe and over the hill. Just freeze it and turn it into Yonanas soft serve. If you don’t want to eat the soft serve, stick it in the freezer.
- READY WHENEVER YOU ARE. Because Yonanas is not churned with air like recipes made in an ice cream machine, when placed in the freezer the soft serve freezes hard like an ice pop. But it softens nicely: In five minutes or so, you’ll be able to dig in with a spoon.
Yonanas is good for you and it’s fun. It may help to get the ice cream addict(s) in the family on a healthier track.
Add Non-Caloric Sweeteners
The soft serve is only as sweet as the natural sugar in the fruit. If you want more sweetness (we did), you can sprinkle or drizzle it as soon as the soft serve hits the bowl.
- Sprinkle on non-caloric sweeteners such as Equal or Splenda.
- Drizzle low-glycemic agave nectar.
- Honey lovers: Here’s your opportunity to use this delicious sweetener.
Mix-Ins & Garnishes
You can add some of your favorite mix-ins to the chute:
- Chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
- Shredded coconut
- Chopped pistachios
Or, you can sprinkle them atop the finished soft serve along with fresh fruit, granola, trail mix or whatever you enjoy (gummy bears and M&Ms tend to defeat the purpose, though).
Watch videos of Yonanas being made on the company website. Get yourself a Yonanas machine: You deserve it!
And, you may become more popular as people begin to invite themselves over for some Yonanas. Tell them to BYOFF: bring your own frozen fruit.
— Karen Hochman
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