Vanilla frozen dessert with cherries, walnuts and maple syrup

What makes this dessert (or breakfast) more fun and more clean-up is the wholly unnecessary use of the piping bag for visual effect. But some things just aren’t as nice with a spoon. Carefully rolled parchment paper or a plastic storage bag with a trimmed corner make good, make-shift piping bags if you don’t need the refinement a tip provides.

Ingredients

1T maple syrup, divided
1/2 cup frozen cherries, divided
A pinch coarse sea salt
1T walnuts, chopped
3 medium frozen bananas (about 2 cups)
1/2t vanilla extract

Optional: 1t powdered maca and/or a little shaved chocolate for garnish.

Directions

Finely chop half of the cherries.
Toss the cherries, 1/2T maple syrup, sea salt and all but about 1t of the walnuts.
Let stand about 5 minutes at room temperature.
Puree the bananas, vanilla and 1/2T maple syrup until quite smooth. Add the maca if you’ll be including it.
Using a piping bag (I use it without a tip for this), pipe the banana mixture into an appropriate glass into the design of your choice, narrowing about an inch or in from the sides around the top for the cherries and walnuts.
Add the cherries and walnuts and drizzle with the maple syrup.
Sprinkle the top with the remaining walnuts and serve.