Caramlized Banana Gelato

City-Kid Review:

Oh, yeah, yeah. Whole body. Love it.

OMG
I am very excited to declare I made my first ever ice cream, today! I am always astonished when I am upstate or somewhere north and can purchase an enormous two scoop, straight-from-the-homegrown-cow ice cream for the price of a thimble full in Manhattan. Purity Ice Cream in Ithaca immediately comes to mind. Peaceful Meadow Farm in MA is another. There are a ton of others, it just takes a google or yelp search.

Ice Cream Van Feuding Duels
Although I loved ice cream van ice creams when I was a kid, which seemed to be parked outside of every park and playground and which regularly jingled up our road, (how did my parents ever get me past one of those?) In the UK, I used to love what was called a 99, and whip of soft ice cream plunged with a stick of flake chocolate. Whomever thought of that was a genius. However, I am reluctant to purchase from ice cream vans these days. Not just because of the contents of said soft serves but because of the internecine feud going on between Mr. Softee and New York Ice Cream. Intimidation and strong arm tactics do not go well with kiddie ice cream. You can read all about it in this NYTimes article.

I scoured all of my cookbooks, along with the one which arrived with my ice cream maker, and the only one for which I already had all of the ingredients was Roasted Banana with Bourbon Gelato from Chloe Coscarelli’s Vegan Italian Kitchen Cookbook.

Skip the Bourbon
I skipped the bourbon, for obvious reasons, and added cacao nibs for a chocolatey crunch, instead. My daughter loved the mixture before I put it in the fridge to cold down and was very excited to eat it once it had hardened into ice cream. My husband and I LOVED it; our daughter loved it at first but then….she gave it a thumbs down. It does have an adult, almost coffee-like taste; I can see it might be too complex a flavor for her.

Strawberry Has It
So, with that, I am going to try something very simple next – a vanilla, chocolate or strawberry. And, with strawberries deliciously in season right now, I think I’ll try that first. And, I will resist adding anything fancy, such as basil, to it. Nope, plain, true, simple strawberry, all the way.