Quick Peanut Butter-Banana Ice Cream

I've posted uses for overripe bananas a few times already, but this is now far and away my favorite method of using up those speckled stragglers squirreled away in my freezer. I've used frozen bananas to add oomph to smoothies for ages, but I'd never tried to blitz them on their own until the other day when I wanted to make some cool and delicious treat, only to find I was out of dairy (save a couple cans of condensed milk). After some experimentation with the sweetened condensed milk and some peanut butter (and lots of scraping down the sides of my blender), I achieved my goal, and how! I'm shocked at just how well this mimicked ice cream with a solid custard base, in both mouthfeel and scoopability. I credit that to the higher levels of sugar in the overripe bananas as well as the addition of sweetened condensed milk. Whatever the sorcery, it made for a scrumptious, easy (and mildly healthier!) dessert.

Quick Peanut Butter-Banana Ice Cream
Makes about cup and a half, or 3 servings

*2 frozen bananas, peeled and sliced
*2 tablespoons peanut butter (I used chunky-style for some textural fun, but feel free to use smooth)
*1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk

Blitz it all together in your most powerful blender or food processor. My blender isn't the greatest, so there's a fair deal of scraping I have to do to get it all to blend properly, but if you have something top shelf like Vitamix, this should be a snap. Once it's getting...for lack of a better word, goopy, scrape it out into a container, press a round of Saran-wrap on top to prevent ice crystals from forming, lid it and pop into the freezer to harden again until you're ready to serve.

Note: Some googling turned up plenty of other delicious additives - must try Nutella next time!

Banana-Walnut Muffins

After a generous cluster of bananas had seen me through breakfast for nearly a week, the stragglers were starting to turn gory-looking - just right for banana bread. However, I couldn't find my bread tin (!?), so I went the muffin route. Which, as it turned out, worked wonderfully...can't beat the convenience of palming a muffin before you dash madly out the door on the way to work. I slightly modified a banana bread recipe from Cooks Illustrated, a recipe had been loitering in my "To Try" folder for a while, and it produced delicious muffins! I'll have to keep this recipe around for the next time my banana bunch dwindles down to the dank dark dregs. Now, to find my bread tin....

Banana-Walnut Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

*2 cups flour

*1 cup toasted walnut pieces 

*3/4 cup sugar

*3/4 teaspoon baking soda

*1/2 teaspoon salt

*3 large grossly overripe bananas

*1/4 cup sour cream 

*2 eggs, beaten

*6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

*1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl, whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and walnuts together. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas well with a fork, then add the sour cream, eggs, butter and vanilla. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined (don't overmix). Divide the batter evenly around the greased muffin tin. Bake until the muffins are golden on top, approximately 20-23 minutes.

(Pro-tip - they're best warm, split, with a small pat of slowly melting butter)

Banana Bread

The massive bag of bananas that I bought at Produce Junction...the same haul whence sprang the Roasted Banana Ice Cream, dwindled down to a motley collection of 5 overripe and deeply freckled fruits over the week. Perfect pickins for banana bread. I have cobbled my recipe together from many bits and pieces of recipes gleaned over the years, but decided to sub some of my usual allotment of brown sugar with maple syrup. The good stuff, straight from the mighty tit of a Québecois maple. The flavor is definitely improved by its addition, but certainly just use brown sugar if you don't have any of the good stuff on hand.

Banana Bread
Makes one 4x8 inch loaf

*4 extra-ripe bananas (I used the whole bunch [5] because they were on the smaller side)
*6 tablespoons melted butter
*1/2 cup light brown sugar
*1/3 cup good maple syrup
*1 scant teaspoon vanilla
*1 large egg, whisked
*1 glug of bourbon (a tablespoon, I'm guessing, if you don't adhere to the glug system of measurement)
*A pinch of salt
*1 scant teaspoon cinnamon
*1/4 teaspoon allspice
*A pinch of ground cloves
*1 teaspoon baking soda
*1 1/2 cups flour
*A handful of walnut pieces (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350. Smash the bananas in a bowl with a fork until no large chunks remain, and stir in melted butter. Mix in the sugar, syrup, egg, vanilla, bourbon, salt, spices, and baking soda. Add the flour in 1/2 cup additions, stirring well after each. If you want to throw in some nuts, go for it. Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake for 45-50 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool for a spell, and then remove the bread from the pan.