When your family of five wants lots of ice cream

You can find ice cream all across Japan. There are billions of flavors of soft serve, so many ice cream bars and of course the amazing variety of parfaits. The parfaits are amazing with toppings ranging from fruit to whip cream to cake. There is one thing that is hard to find in Japan when it comes to ice cream though. Something that this American who spent many summers sharing buckets of ice cream together with friends misses. Those buckets of ice cream. It is easy to find single serve ice cream, all in the proper portion size to not overeat and not overindulge. Sometimes you can find pints of ice cream that are overpriced and typically only in your basic flavors, vanilla and chocolate. Now I know it isn't healthy to pig out on ice cream, but I do think there are times when a giant tub is called for. Like recently when all five members of my family, myself included, wanted something you never see sold in Japan, a banana split. There is a reason we all had a sudden urge to have a large pile of ice cream nestled between two slices of banana topped with chocolate sauce and sprinkles. No, it wasn't the heat wave, but that certainly didn't help with the craving. It was from a box of food pictures my son has. 

We all wanted a big pile of sweet cold deliciousness after seeing this. So, I decided to make some ice cream! I went and got whipping cream from the store, added some condensed milk and coconut flakes and whipped it until frothy. poured it into a big plastic tub and stuck it in my freezer. 

And that is how my family of five were able to make our own banana split sundaes.