Friday, July 16, 2010

A peanut butter ice cream banana split! It's delish


When I started thinking about how I could create something different for a banana split, I began remember my favorite way to eat bananas as a kid, the oh so good and classic peanut butter, honey and banana sandwich. Yummy! I still love these today, so I thought I'd take the same basic idea and apply it to the banana split and guess what.... it works! I can also tell you it's husband approved since there wasn't a drop left on my husbands plate after he got a hold of what you saw in the picture. :-)

Following my rule of thumb to try and make everything from scratch in my kitchen, for this banana split you start by making your own peanut butter and end with making some fresh whip cream.
Check out the recipe and let me know what you think.

Don't get intimidated by making everything from scratch. It's all very easy to make and you can easily do it all, but the the frying of bananas and making the whip cream, a head of time.

What You'll Need - 4 banana splits
For the Peanut Butter
  • 1 cup organic, dry roasted, unsalted peanuts (you could also use raw peanuts)
  • 1-2 tbsp. vegetable oil (consider coconut, safflower or peanut oil)
  • pinch of sea salt


For the Peanut Butter Ice Cream
  • Peanut butter from recipe above
  • 1 cup organic cream
  • 1 cup organic milk - preferably whole milk
  • 1/4 cup raw honey

For the Honey Caramel Sauce

For the Whip Cream
  • 1 cups organic heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup organic sugar - You could probably use honey instead if you wanted to. You'd likely only need about 1/8 cup because of it's more intense sweetness.
  • 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

And for the Rest
  • 4 bananas sliced length wise
  • 4+ tbsp. organic salted butter
  • A drizzling of honey for the frying pan 
  • Dry roasted peanuts to garnish with


Getting Started
The peanut butter ice cream first: 
1. Start by making your peanut butter. Toss your peanuts into a food processor and process until you have a very thick, slightly chunky peanut butter.




2. Add a pinch of salt and 1 tbsp. of vegetable oil and process until peanut butter is smooth. If it seems a little too thick still, add a small amount of oil (like 1/4 tsp.) until you get to a smooth, creamy consistency.


3. Now you've got peanut butter and you don't have to buy the store bought stuff anymore. :-) Add 1 cup cream, 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup honey to the peanut butter that is still in the food processor. Process for approximately 30 seconds or until all ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

4. Pour mixture into your ice cream maker and follow manufactures instructions for freezing ice cream.

Now for the honey caramel sauce:
1. In a small pot heat over medium high to high heat your 1 cup cream, 1 cup honey and 4 tbsp. butter and 1/2 tsp. of salt. to boiling, stirring constantly.


2. Reduce heat to medium or a bit lower, until mixture doesn't want to boil over and is closer to a hard simmer.

3. Allow to cook like this (no stirring necessary) until your sauce is a light caramel color and it's thickened. From the beginning of heating my ingredients to the end it took me about 20 min. to get it to the right color and thickness.


4. Allow caramel sauce to cool, at least some. You don't want ice cream soup because you poured caramel sauce on it that was too hot! :-) If you make it ahead of time you may have to heat it just slightly to be able to drizzle it over the ice cream.

We can't forget about those bananas: 
1. In a large skillet melt your 4 tbsp. of butter and a drizzling of honey. Place you bananas cut side down and fry over medium to medium high heat for 1-2 minutes or until they are golden brown. Be careful to not have your pan too hot or you'll burn you butter.


2. Flip bananas one time and fry the other side. Carefully remove them from the pan with a spatula and place on serving plates.




And finally the whip cream:
1. Using a hand mixer or an equivalent, beat your 1 cup cream, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla extract until you have whip cream. Talk about easy and this whip cream is a million times better then the store bought stuff out of can. (If you have left over whip cream, save it for your morning cup of coffee or serve this desert with coffee and a dollop of whip cream on top. Soooo good!)


Well you're done prepping, now you have the fun job of plating. Just make sure some of the ingredients actually make it to the plate and not to your mouth first! :-D There is a chance that I may be guilty with that...

Enjoy!!!

2 comments:

  1. Therese, I had no idea you did a #splits... Congrats on the top 9 honey!! This is gorgeous :D

    ReplyDelete

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