Can you say Bananahhh??

After watching another episode of Alton Brown’s Good Eats featuring the many ways to eat a banana..I was left drooling at the banana ice cream he made. When I did my grocery shopping, I made sure I got a bunch of bananas to churn out some ice cream.

The ice cream though looked very pale and vanilla ice cream like, turned out lusciously delicious, so creamy, so “banana-ee”, and was so easy to make. When I first tasted the ice cream once I stopped the ice cream machine, the taste of the ice cream was just so-so. After freezing the ice cream for about 5-6 hours, it somehow tasted way better! You can find the original recipe HERE.

BANANA ICE CREAM RECIPE

Ingredients :

• 6 (approximately 2 1/4 pounds) ripe bananas
• 1 tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 3/4 cup light corn syrup
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Method :

Place bananas in freezer and freeze overnight. Remove bananas from freezer and allow to thaw for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Peel bananas and place in bowl of food processor along with the lemon juice. Process for 10 to 15 seconds. Add corn syrup and vanilla bean seeds and turn processor on. Slowly pour in the heavy cream. Process until smooth. Chill mixture in refrigerator until it reaches 40 degrees. Transfer mixture to an ice cream maker and process according to manufacturer's instructions. Place mixture in an airtight container and freeze for 3 to 6 hours before serving.

June’s comments: I almost had frost bite peeling the semi frozen bananas. It might be a better idea to peel the banana first then freeze it. I wonder if it will make a huge difference to the texture of the banana though. It took me about 15-20 minutes to churn my ice cream in my Cuisinart Ice Cream maker. The ice cream reached a soft served consistency and the paddle wasn’t able to turn as the volume of the churned ice cream was too much for my bowl to handle (it over flowed). Although on the food network site it said the recipe will give you about 1 quart of ice cream, I think it was more 1.5 quart-2 quart of ice cream. It was nevertheless very yummy, very velvety smooth and rich! =)

I took my homemade banana ice cream and created my version of a banana split sundae. Two scoops of banana ice cream dressed up with strawberry sauce, shaved chocolate, topped with a maraschino cherry and served up in a bowl instead of a boat shape ice cream bowl.