Tag: banana

Banana ice cream

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Small vintage enamel Cathrineholm bowl with home made banana ice cream and pair of ice cream wafer curls | H is for Home

As we mentioned in a post last week, we’ve been feasting on lots of ice lollies in the warm weather.

bag of over ripe, marked down bananas

I saw this big bag of marked down, overripe bananas in the supermarket and thought I’d make some home-made banana ice cream.

sliced bananas on a chopping board

It’s really easy – first you peel & slice all the bananas and freeze them.

sliced bananas on two pizza cooking mesh sheets

Prior to putting them into the freezer I arranged them on these pizza baking meshes so that they didn’t turn into a massive, rock-hard lump.

frozen sliced bananas in a food processor

After about half an hour in the freezer, pop the slices into a food processor and whiz for about 5 minutes stopping every minute or so, popping off the cover and turning over the contents with a spatula to ensure it all gets chopped up.

creamed frozen bananas in a food processor

If needed, you can add about 150ml of whole milk, single cream, soya or almond milk to give it a creamier consistency. You can also add a couple of tablespoons of honey or agave nectar for a sweeter mix.

creamed frozen bananas in a food processor

Decant into tubs (I used 6 medium bananas which made about 2 litres) and put in the freezer. Remove the tub from the freezer about 5 minutes before serving to make it easier to run a scoop through it.

small vintage enamel Cathrineholm bowl with home made banana ice cream and pair of ice cream wafer curls

Try folding in chopped unsalted peanuts or chocolate chips (or both!) to the mix prior to decanting into the tubs.

Banana Parkin

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sliced banana ginger parkin on a vintage wooden chopping board alongside a vintage tiered cake tin

I opened the car’s glove compartment yesterday in search of a CD… but came across a couple of “past their sell by date” bananas instead. They’d been put there a few days earlier as an “on board” snack for a trip we’d made to Penrith. Rather than throw them out (or giving them to Fudge as a treat) I decided to make some banana parkin… with a ginger twist!

sliced banana ginger parkin on a vintage wooden chopping board sliced banana ginger parkin on a vintage wooden chopping board

Parkin is a cake traditionally eaten in the autumn – and especially on Bonfire Night. It’s very popular, and thought to have originated, in the north of England – probably Yorkshire or Lancashire.

The Great Big Cookie Book opened on the banana ginger parkin recipe page

The method I used was taken from The Great Big Cookie Book by Hilaire Walden.

ingredients to make banana ginger parkin sitting on a vintage wooden butchers block

Banana parkin

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Ingredients
  

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas mark 3. Grease & line an 18cm x 28cm / 7” x 11” tin.
  • Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and ginger, then stir in the oatmeal.
  • Melt the sugar, margarine and syrup in a saucepan over a low heat, then stir into the flour mixture. Beat in the egg and mashed bananas.
  • Spoon into the prepared tin and bake for about an hour until firm to the touch.
  • Leave to cool in the tin, then turn out and cut into squares. (I made mine in a loaf tin, so I cut it into slices).
Parkin improves with age and, if stored in an airtight container, keeps for a couple of months.

sliced & buttered banana ginger parkin on a plate with a mug of tea

Perfect with a mug of strong (Yorkshire… or Lancashire) tea!