(Whole) Banana Nice cream By Chef Chiara
You can enjoy a very nice-cream using frozen bananas… including their skins!
Ingredients:
- For the banana ice cream:
- 2 ripe bananas. Since we're also using the skins make sure they are still intact and smells good.
- For the Caramelized Banana Peels:
- 2 ripe banana peels
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup water
Method:
Peel the bananas, cut them into small pieces to avoid overworking your appliance.
Freeze the pieces for 3 hours minimum - better if overnight.
After this time, use a food processor or a powerful blender and keep going until you get a smooth banana cream.
While you wait for the frozen bananas you can prepare their skins. You have 3 options: caramelised peels to be added as a topping, or a banana peels powder to be included in you mix to enhance the flavor, or a caramel jam to be "swirled" into your banana nice-cream.
Start with the Caramelised Banana Peels. Clean the peels: Thoroughly wash the peels, preferably using organic bananas to avoid pesticides.
Cut off the ends and remove any remaining white fibrous flesh inside using a spoon. Cut the peels into strips.
Boiling the peels in water for 10 minutes help soften them.
Combine sugar and water in a saucepan, bringing it to a simmer. Add the strips and cook over low heat for about 10 minutes until they are coated and caramelised.
Remove from heat and spread out to cool.
Banana Peel Powder: Bake the caramelised strips at 130-150°C for 1-1.5 hours until thoroughly dried, then blend into a powder.
Caramel Jam: Purée the caramelised peels with the syrup from the caramelisation to create a "banana peel caramel jam".
Important: make sure that any of the options you picked for the skins is at ambient temperature or better cold otherwise it will compromise your nice cream structure!
