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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Brown Sugared Bananas with Vanilla Ice Cream

I had originally planned to serve some Cafe Johnsonia vanilla ice cream with this. I e-mailed ol' CJ and asked if she had a vanilla ice cream recipe. She is the resident ice cream whisperer blogger in Utah and I knew she would have a recipe to beat all.

Have a recipe, she did.

Send it to me, she did.

Mess it up, I did.

I HATE screwing up on food. (I hate it so much that I even highlighted "hate" in red. I never highlight.) I hate screwing up on food like I hate Satan. When I mess up on a recipe, I don't want to touch it ever again. Like fudge. I tried twice and now I will never try again. I am afraid I might never make vanilla ice cream ever again. I hope that isn't the case. I will see how I feel when I recover.

To substitute the vanilla ice cream I had intended to succeed in making, I luckily had Breyer's Natural Vanilla. Next best thing to homemade.

These little bananas are decadent. Warm, sweet and delicious. I like it with coconut, but you could do almonds (my mom likes those).




1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
3 Tbsp powdered sugar
3 bananas, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
Vanilla ice cream (Cafe Johnsonia's recipe below)
1/2 cup toasted coconut

In a medium bowl, add heavy cream. With a hand mixer on high, whisk the cream. Once frothy, add powdered sugar. Continue mixing until firm, about 2 minutes. Put in the fridge until serving time.

In a medium skillet over medium high heat, add the butter. Once melted, add the bananas, brown sugar, maple syrup and cinnamon. Gently stir to combine. Simmer until the brown sugar is dissolved, about 3 minutes. Serve immediately over ice cream. Garnish with whipped cream and toasted coconut.



Cafe Johnsonia Vanilla Ice Cream
2 cups cold heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
4-8 egg yolks (8 will be super rich, 4 is perfect)
2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar (depends on how sweet you like it)
pinch salt
2 tsp pure vanilla extract (or 1 vanilla bean)

Heat the whole milk in a pan until very hot. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar until light in color and thick. Slowly add the hot milk to the eggs while whisking. Pour it back into the pan and cook over medium heat until it reaches 160 degrees F. (It will coat the back of a spoon.) Strain it through a fine mesh sieve into a clean bowl. Add the cold cream, vanilla, and salt. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and chill until very cold--about three hours. (Or you can do an ice bath. Put the bowl in a bowl full of ice & water. It will chill super fast if you use a metal bowl.) Churn it.

Make sure if you are using a Cuisinart-type maker that you freeze the bowl for at least 12-16 hours so the ice cream will churn and freeze properly.




And hey, HAPPY TAX DAY!
I like to count my blessings on tax day.
I count my two little write-offs, Van and Jack.
Ethan is a blessing. He makes our refund possible.
I count my tax guy Andrew as a blessing.
And I also count all of our medical expenses we got to write-off.

Almost makes the expenses worth it.
Almost.

9 comments:

Donna-FFW said...

OMG!! All of this looks so delcious, I am, so glad I stumbled by your blog, it is fabulous.. nice to meet you!

Scate said...

This looks fantastic! I screwed up the cutest meringue cookies last night. I wanted to cry. They were so pretty - and i screwed up the oven temp! My 5 year old neice could have gotten that right! THanks for sharing mistakes - it makes me feel a little better. I might even try them again. But - not before i try these bananas - they look FANTASTIC! thanks for sharing.

Melanie said...

Bummer about the messed up ice cream. But the rest of the dessert looks fantastic...

[Morgan] said...

oh man. that looks really good. really good.

Unknown said...

Dang. I'm sorry it didn't work out. :(

I can't even imagine how good those brown sugar bananas are. My tummy is rumbling. I really shouldn't read blogs until I've had breakfast. :)

Kelly Mo said...

Enjoy being about to write of your two little ones. 2008 was the last year to do it as our new president is not renewing that little gem!

Ingrid_3Bs said...

Oops, sorry it didn't work out for you. Definitely try again. Lindsey & her ice creams rock. I've got the Bananas foster ice cream custard cooling in the fridge to be churned, made a double batch. YUM!

Your brown sugared bananas sound & look amazing. I've already printed out the recipe.
~ingrid...seriously try again, you CAN do it! If I can you can. :)

ljkc said...

"I hate screwing up on food like I hate Satan." - LOL, Amen! ;)

xo

Gina said...

mmm! It looks like it might also be good on pancakes or waffles with some whip cream but the cold ice cream's sounding mighty good right now.