Banana Ice Cream with Dulce de Leche

If you've thought I was through posting banana recipes, you'd be wrong. As long as they keep coming, I'll be trying to do something creative with them. When I can't think of anything or am too lazy to cook, there's always dried bananas.

But, just couldn't resist this recipe I found at Mike's Table. What an outstanding combination: bananas, roasted in brown sugar and butter, vanilla ice cream, and Dulce de Leche swirled in at the end. Of course, I had to fiddle with it. No cream?? This is ice cream folks. So, instead of using whole milk, I used half milk and half heavy cream. But, the good thing is, no cooking an egg custard. Plus, since I was making it for my grandson's birthday party, where there would be all kinds of picky kids running around (confession time here) I thought, if I throw in some lovely, toasty, macadamia nuts, there will definitely be enough. Ha ha, for the adults. And, won't it add to the whole flavor combination? And, I was right, on all counts, though the more discriminating of the children had some. "Honey, do you want chocolate ice cream, or the banana one with nuts?"

Roasted Banana Ice Cream with Dulce de Leche Swirls

This is derived from David Lebovitz’s The Perfect Scoop, via Mike's Table

7 ripe bananas (plus one for adding later in frozen or fresh chunks)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp butter
3 cups whole milk (as much of this as you want can be cream)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
juice of 1 lemon
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup toasted, chopped macadamia nuts
1/2 - 3/4 cup dulce de leche

Slice 7 of the bananas, and toss them in the brown sugar and butter (melted a few minutes in the baking dish). Bake in a 400°F oven for 40 minutes, stirring once.

Once time is up, the bananas should be nicely browned and syrupy. Scrape the contents of this pan (bananas and syrup) into a blender/food processor along with the milk, cream, sugar, vanilla, lemon, and salt and blend until smooth. Cover and chill this in the fridge for a few hours.

While that is cooling, you can make the Dulche de Leche (very easy - milk cooks in oven) or if you don't want to heat up your kitchen, you can maybe buy this in some supermarkets. I wasn't able to here in Hilo, but you may be able to in a bigger city, one with more strange/ethnic stuff available.

Dulce de Leche.

one14 oz can of condensed milk
dash salt

Pour the condensed milk and dash of salt into a nonreactive oven-proof container (enamel, glass, etc). Cover with tin foil and put this in a warm water bath so that the water goes about halfway up the height of the pan. I used a heavy glass measuring cup. How simple is that?

Set this in preheated 425F oven at least an hour - check if it is looking like caramel yet. Is it thick and gloppy? Then it's done.

Here you see the Dulce before whisking smooth.

So, when it resembles dark butterscotch, remove from the oven, carefully take off the foil, and let it cool to room temperature, whisking well once it does. While it's cooling, you may want to toast some chopped macadamia nuts. Watch them so they don't burn. I overdid mine and had to do another batch.

Once well chilled, churn the banana-cream mixture in your ice cream maker, according to manufacturer's directions, for about 20 minutes. About 5 minutes before it's finished, dump the nuts in. I sliced a frozen banana (you can use a fresh one as well) into little bits, and once time was up, mixed it into the ice cream along with a few globs of dulce de leche. Immediately scoop your finished ice cream into a suitable container and put into the freezer.

It should sit overnight to take on the right texture. This is so creamy, nutty, rich caramelly good, yikes!