Desserts that deserve a chilly reception

I liked last weekend's cool summer desserts enough that I thought I'd run a couple more. Those were a little too tasty for this blog, though, so I wanted nasty but chilly summer desserts... and like pizza, even bad desserts tend not to be that bad. I knew I had to take some drastic measures to find suitable entries. That's right: I pulled out my trusty health food cookbooks!

The Rodale Cookbook (Nancy Albright, 1973) has a very special "ice cream" recipe:

If you're surprised there is no cream in Banana Ice Cream, you clearly haven't read enough '70s health food recipes. This consists mostly of gelatin, eggs, and soy milk (back in the day when soy milk was a beany, homemade beverage that wasn't too gritty if you fixed it just right). The honey, orange juice concentrate, and banana will hopefully cover up all that soy (and the lack of cream). I'm not sure what the texture would be like if the gelatinous primary components are all frozen together and later whipped with the egg whites, but the book insists it will be "fluffy." Fluffy, beany, possibly salmonella-y dessert. Yay.

I think I'd rather go with the current trick of pureeing frozen banana slices with a little almond milk and cocoa powder for a quick, dairy-free soft serve.

Rodale has nothing on The Rosicrucian Fellowship's New Age Vegetarian Cookbook (copyright 1968, although mine is a May 1975 fifth edition). Everyone has heard of flavoring a dessert with oranges and bananas, but I was totally unprepared for this flavor:

If you've ever looked at reddish seaweed on a rock and thought, "How can I make that a central feature in a dessert?", the recipe answers your question. Simmer it with milk, add a tiny bit of honey and vanilla, and turn it into a blanc mange! Personally, I am a bit skeptical of any dessert recipe that starts with "small handful of moss," but maybe I am overly critical...

Or maybe I just prefer blancmanges that come from Planet Skyron and play tennis instead.

Happy Saturday! Have an out-of-this-world weekend!