Strawberry Gelato

With strawberries in season, I couldn't help but try this quick and easy recipe for strawberry gelato. It was the perfect sensation of tangy and sweet and delightfully smooth and cold! Here goes:

1 lb. fresh strawberries
1.5 cups granulated sugar
1.5 cups cold whipping cream
1.5 cups cold water
dash of lemon juice

Clean and cut washed berries into quarters. Put berries, sugar and water into blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add a dash of lemon juice. Add the cold whipping cream and blend until recipe thickens slightly (consistency of buttermilk). Put the mix in an ice cream maker and freeze for 25-30 minutes or until perfect!

The recipe suggested adding 2Tbs. vodka to keep the ice-cream from freezing too hard after you put it in your freezer. I tried it and it worked like a charm! If you're not planning to eat your gelato right away, I'd suggest doing this to keep it soft enough to scoop later on.

This recipe is great by itself, but even more delicious when used as an ice-cream cake filling.

Nanner!

This recipe tastes so delicious that it should come with a warning label-- avoid at all costs if you are depressed, pregnant or otherwise have no self-control. I'm not even a big banana fan, but this stuff is killer. Outside the Trevi Fountain in Rome, there is a gelato shop where we tasted banana gelato this September. The memory has lingered long enough for me to attempt my own version. Recently, I saw a recipe for something similar in a book that I flipped through at Williams Sonoma. It used less cream, more milk and brown sugar instead of vanilla. This version is adapted from a basic ice-cream recipe that came with my Cuisinart ice-cream maker and I threw in my own ideas (and bananas). Instead of plain vanilla extract, I also used a special vanilla-paste-gel sort of product that I found at The Fresh Market in the extract section. I never knew how delicious the smell of roasting bananas was-- but WOW! Enjoy all of this nanner-goodness...

Roasted Banana Ice Cream with Honey and Vanilla

3 cups roasted bananas (3 large bananas)

1 teaspoon butter

4 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon honey

1.5 cups whole milk

2 & 3/4 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

pinch of salt

Melt 1 tablespoon honey with 1 teaspoon butter in microwave. Stir and toss with peeled sliced bananas. Roast at 400 degrees F approximately 20-30 minutes, until soft and caramelized. Chill banana mixture and then process in food processor along with the lemon juice and pinch of salt.

In a small bowl, mix the rest of the honey and the whole milk and dissolve. You may need to nuke it 20 seconds to speed the process. Add heavy cream, vanilla extract, and whisk in chilled banana puree.

Place mixture in electric ice-cream maker for approximately 20-25 minutes. When ice-cream is churned and the texture of soft-serve, put it in containers and freeze until desired texture is attained. Yum yum!