Banana and Candied Walnut Ice Cream

Before you start, if you don’t like nuts, or you have an allergy, just ditch them! The banana ice cream is delicious all on it’s own!

I LOVE making ice cream. I use to have an ice cream machine that you packed with salt and ice, but then I did the math and realized if I was constantly making ice cream then I was better off investing in a machine that I didn’t have to buy ice and salt for (we didn’t have an ice maker at the time..). Plus it saved me time! HERE is a link to the ice cream maker I have, and it’s amazing! My ice cream is usually frozen in 15 minutes.

Ingredients

• 3 Very Ripe Bananas
• 1 Cup Whole Milk
• 1.5 Cups Heavy Cream
• 1/4 tsp Cinnamon
• 6 TBL White Sugar (depending on how sweet your bananas are you might night to add one extra tablespoon)
• 3 TBL Brown Sugar
• 1 Pinch of salt
• 5 Large Egg Yolks
• 1 TBL Vanilla
• 1/2 Candied Walnuts (Optional, I used *this* recipe)

Note: If you haven’t made ice cream before you might see some terms in here you don’t understand, I’ll be sure to put in a section about it at the end of the instructions.

Instructions

• First peel and mash half of your bananas with a fork, the other half throw in a blender or food processor. (If you don’t have one of those or you don’t want to do the extra dishes, just mash the bananas extra well, it will be fine.)
• Next pour the milk and heavy cream into a saucepan on the stove over medium high.
• When it starts to simmer, turn it off and whisk in the mashed bananas and cinnamon.
• While that milk is heating up, whisk your yolks, sugars, and salt together until it becomes pale and smooth.
• Next temper your eggs mixture with the warm milk.
• Once that all is combined pour it back into the saucepan over medium heat.
• Keep stirring with a spatula until it thickens. You can check this by dipping your spatula in, running a finger through the mixture, if the line holds and the mixture doesn’t flood back into it, then you’re good!
• Take the this ice cream base off the heat and let it come to room temperature.
• Cover and chill in the fridge overnight, or just a few hours if you’re in a rush.
• Pour into your ice cream machine and freeze as directed. I put the candied walnuts in about 5 minutes before it’s completely done. These are completely optional. I love the crunchy addition!
• Put it in a container and store in the freezer!

Additional Help

What is tempering?? This might seem difficult, but it’s pretty simple! Tempering, is a fancy way of saying, combining two liquids with different temperatures without changing the texture. When you pour that hot milk into the eggs, you don’t want to end with scrambled eggs, you still want smooth, liquid texture. So first, WHILE you are whisking the eggs/sugars, take a measuring cup and pour about 1/4 cup of the hot milk into the eggs. KEEP WHISKING and add another 1/4 cup. Just keep slowly adding in the hot liquid until you have adding about 60% of the milk and then you can slowly stream in the rest. Your arms might get tired, but the key is to just KEEP WHISKING!

Wait a second, are these eggs raw??? Nope. When you place the base back on the stove you are effectively cooking the eggs, but since they are tempered, they won’t look like scrambled eggs (if they do, then toss it and start over). If you want to be extra safe you can get a thermometer out and check the temperature.

If Banana Ice Cream isn’t your jam, come back later, I’ll be posting my Vanilla and Chocolate recipes, and once you have those, the possibilities are endless!

CLICK HERE for the perfect Caramel Sauce recipe to pour on top!!