Murphy's Banana Ice-Cream with Chocolate Shavings

Now I am sure I didn't need any more dessert this weekend after the baked chocolate tart but I promised the husbag that I'd make him banana ice-cream with chocolate chips and being the perfect wife that I am I couldn't let him down!!! ;-) tee hee and a girl can never have too much chocoalte either!!

So last week Kieran posted the most gorgeous sounding banana ice-cream with chocolate shavings recipe and I just had to try it. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with bananas, sometimes I can't get enough of them and sometimes I won't touch them. I think it's all the little stringy bits to be honest and I prefer them slightly under ripe as the flavour is different to a really ripe one.

So anyway enough rambling about my relationship with bananas here's the recipe, I have changed the order of the ingredients to reflect the order I used them in and the original is available in the link above.

• 2 large bananas (the original recipe called for 3 but mine we MAHOOSIVE so I used 2)
  
• 15 ml (1 tablespoon) fresh lemon juice
  
• 130g sugar
• 5 egg yolks
• 200 ml milk
• 240 ml cream
• 20 g good quality dark chocolate (I probably used a bit more as I threw in some extra chips once I had the first 20g in)

Combine the bananas with the lemon juice and blend or mash until smooth, I used a blender to make the bananas as smooth as possible cos the idea of lumps just doesn't do it for me but you might like your bananas a little lumpier.

Put the bananas in a small saucepan, add two tablespoons of sugar and cook over low heat, stirring all the time. Don’t over-cook them as once they're warm they should release a strong banana smell so you'll know then that's enough!

Beat the rest of the sugar and egg yolks together until thick and pale yellow.

Bring the milk to a low simmer in a small saucepan and then beat the milk into the eggs and sugar in a slow stream.

Put the mixture back into the saucepan and place over low heat. Stir continuously until the custard thickens slightly (around 65-70C) and coats the back of a spoon. Don’t over-heat the mixture because at around 76C you will scramble the eggs! I never use a thermometer for this part but if you have one then I'd say to use it cos it'll be much easier.

Mix in the bananas and transfer the custard into a small container, cover and put into the fridge until cool

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks - don’t over-whip and fold the cream into the custard.

I have an ice-cream maker and very rarely use it as I'm just too lazy to put the bowl in the freezer overnight I guess. It's just as easy to stir every hour or so I find. But if you're using an ice-cream machine then put it in for about 15 mins and then put it in the freezer until it's solid

I used chocolate chips as I had some left over from christmas and mixed them in after 4 hours in the freezer.

This was the first ice-cream I've made with milk in it and it was lovely and light. Am definitely a fan of fresh banana ice-cream and will make this again.

Of Cardamom pillows and honey drops..............

I was browsing blogs on Saturday afternoon as one does, and lets face it there was nothing better to do as it was pouring outside and himself was engrossed in a certain games console that is the third person in our marrige I think sometimes (along with Liverpool FC) when I came across this:

Oh wonder of wonders Ice Cream Ireland had set people a tasting/testing challenge to make various ice creams for their new book, sure what could be better than a challenge involving ice cream????? Nothing I hear you cry, nothing, and you're right nothing could be better than ice creamy goodness made by my own fair hands.

So I checked out the flavours on offer and lo and behold one containing my new favourite spice - Cardamom, and when combined with honey I would be in foodie heaven.

So off I started out on Monday night with my milk, suger, eggs, cardamom and honey. I made my custard and already it smelled divine and if there wasn't pictures to be taken I would have eaten it there and then!!!! Custard city baby!!!

Tuesday night I was home late but this was my priority, I sieved, whipped and folded my way to ice cream heaven, this really was the most fantastically smelling ice-cream imaginable, so into the freezer it went and already I was thinking about eating it on Wednesday when I came home.

So tonight is Wednesday night, I have a friend coming over at 8 for some tasting so I had to get my pictures taken before the delicious iced confection is decimated before my very eyes!!!

So here's my attempt, the light wasn't great and I broke my ice-cream scoop but over all not bad at all, the kitchen does indeed smell of Cardamom pillows and honey drops...............................

P.S my only thoughts were, I should have used my ice cream machine as the ice-cream seperated slighted as you can see in the two toned scoop at the bottom here, but hey I'm not picky!!! Oh and it melted like hell aswell but when the ice-cream is this good who isn't going to lick the plate???