All of the ice cream and sorbet recipes in this book are written to make one to one and a half quarts. This one made one and a half. For that amount, only one banana was needed, and I thought there would have been at least two for some reason. The one banana was pureed with some milk, and then that mixture was added to more milk, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and salt in a saucepan. That was scalded and then used to temper four egg yolks. Eggs and the milk mixture went back into the saucepan and were heated until the custard was thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. I always strain custards just in case there’s any unappetizing cooked egg in there, and then it was chilled in an ice water bath. Once cool, it was refrigerated for a few hours before being churned into rich and nicely flavored ice cream.
My first instinct was to caramelize some sugar on top of banana slices and serve the ice cream on top. Or, I thought a drizzle of caramel sauce might be nice over a big scoop. Wrong and wrong. This ice cream brings plenty to the palate just as it is. The one banana in the custard gave it lovely fruity flavor, and the warm flavors of the spices would have been muddied by caramel. I did slice a fresh banana and sat pieces in the cups as garnish, but anything more heavy-handed than that would have been out of place here. This is one to enjoy just as is or maybe in a cone, and now I wish I had some cones and more of this ice cream.
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