Banana Ice Cream Experiment - Adventures of Carlienne

overview

Today we are running an experiment: we’re exploring 3 ways to make homemade banana ice cream! Fruity ice cream can be tricky to make because of the varying water content they hold, so we’ll test different banana treatments to find our ideal flavor and texture.

Carlienne’s Banana Ice Cream

Ingredients

This makes about 2 quarts of ice cream

230Ml of heavy (40%) cream
120Ml whole milk
6oz banana (your preference of ripeness, we like it very ripe for more flavor)
75g of granulated sugar
1 pasteurized egg
1/8 tsp of salt

Instructions

Prep your banana:
- Cooked: Mash your bananas in a small pan or pot with a sprinkle of sugar to create a banana version of apple sauce. You want to cook it long enough for the fragrance to come out. Set it aside to cool.
- Torched: Mash your bananas in a small sheet pan or baking tray. Dust with sugar and torch until caramelized. You can mix and torch it several times to really get as much torched flavor as you can. Set it aside to cool.
- Pulverized/Raw: Mash your bananas and set it aside.
Whisk your egg, the remaining sugar, and kosher salt until pale yellow (you can use a blender).
Add the banana and give it a quick mix/pulse.
Add the milk and cream and give it a gentle mix (if using a blender, careful not to whip the cream).
Pour ice cream base into a container and chill for at least 4 hours. We waited 12 hours before churning ours.
Follow your ice cream machine’s directions to church.
Store in a tight freezer safe container!

torching banana ice cream — Torched banana: mash and sprinkle sugar

Banana Ice Cream Experiment Conclusion

Pulverizing the raw banana gave it a very light fresh flavor, but a slightly more chalky texture, not surprising since we didn’t cook out any of the water. While we did find the torched banana offered the most and had a distinct flavor, we felt the torching process was a bit much when the cooked banana already had a solid banana (fruity and almost floral) flavor.

Keep in mind that the ripeness of your banana will absolutely effect the flavor. The riper you go, the more floral – almost, artificial banana (think the Runts banana candy) tasting it will get. So far, the texture can use some perfecting, but we really like the flavor of cooked, very ripe (some brown spotting) banana and will be using this method as we continue this experiment! What do you think? Let us know in the comments below!

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