Banana Gelato

Introduction

Of all the fruits banana is the one that best lends itself to making gelato, if you like bananas you’ll love this recipe, but you must absolutely make sure that you use perfectly ripe bananas, which is when they have a lot of black dots on them.

Ingredients

• Whole Milk 15oz (420g)
• Banana Pulp 10.5oz (300g)
• Sugar 3.7oz (105g)
• Dextrose Powder 0.35oz (10g)
• Heavy Cream 3.7oz (105g)
• Egg Yolk 1.2oz (35g) (approx. 3 yolks)
• Skim Milk Powder 0.7oz (20g)
• Stabilizers 0.15oz (4/5g)
• Natural Banana Extract (Optional)

Preparation

Place the ice-cream maker bowl and serving bowls in the freezer Take the eggs out of the refrigerator and let them come to room temperature before starting (this is not necessary but it helps). Select two ripe bananas (with black dots on the peel)

Progress

Mix the milk powder, dextrose and the stabilizers (be careful with the stabilizers, only a few grams are necessary and it is hard to weigh them on a regular scale, one that measure the fraction of a gram would be preferable. Anyway, if in doubt, less is better then more).

Place the milk and cream (safe for one or two table spoon of cream) in a saucepan.

Mix the sugar and egg yolks with the hand mixer until much whiter (weigh the egg yolks, do not approximate any amount, you must be precise!).

Gently mix the rest of the powders in with the egg yolk and sugar. In the meantime bring the milk and cream to a near boil (if you let it boil the milk and cream will lose flavor and water).

Mix the rest of the cold cream in with the egg yolk mixture, then drip by drip at first, add the hot milk, the whole while mixing with the hand mixer, be careful to only add a little at the time less you should cook some of the eggs, if you do, there is really no good solution. The more hot milk and cream you incorporate, the more you can safely incorporate at one time.

Once you have incorporated all the milk it’s best to switch to the immersion blender, keep blending the mixture for a few minutes, this will payoff in the end by making your gelato even creamier and smoother.

Put everything back in the saucepan and on the stove at medium temperature, keep mixing with the immersion blender until you reach 185˚ F, keep checking with the thermometer, once at this temperature lower the stove and try to maintain it for two minutes while still mixing with the blender. You must absolutely avoid bringing the batch to a boil or you will cook the eggs and ruin everything.

Peel and weigh the banana pulp, add it in pieces (and a table spoon full of banana extract, depending of strength, if you’ve decided to use it) to the mixture and blend for a few minutes with the immersion blender,

Transfer the mixture to a bowl, cover it carefully with plastic film an put it in the refrigerator for 6 hours (or until it reaches 42˚F if you are in a hurry, it can easily stay there for 24 hours though). You must cover it carefully because it could pick up undesirable aromas from your refrigerator.

Once the batch has cooled, mix it with the immersion blender for a few minutes before putting it in the ice cream maker.

The gelato should take about 15 minutes to be ready

Serving

Ideally you would serve it immediately after it has spent ten minutes in the freezer, because it is at its most creamy and delectable then. If you wait longer than about 30 minutes, it will become hard. In this case, it’s best to place the container in the refrigerator for about 5-10 minutes to let soften gently. The gelato will be delicate and is best served in frozen bowls. It goes very nicely with toasted pecans or walnuts.