One-Ingredient Ice Cream

Know those cookbooks that are called "5-Ingredient Dinners!"? It's the exclamation market that really does it for me - I don't get how people can get so excited by cream of mushroom soup, because inevitably Campbell's is called in to play in these poor excuses for well-rounded meals.

Still, when I was forwarded a recipe of a 1-ingredient, dairy- and soy-free ice cream I was both excited and skeptical. I guess it's the optimist in me. Some would just call it gullibility, but in this case those people would be wrong. Hurray!

You have to like bananas for this one, but if you even only like them just a little, the texture will win you over. Take some overripe bananas (lots of brown spots...no mold) and stick them in the freezer. Lots of people do this anyway, because if you're going to bake with them it really doesn't matter if the peel goes brown and the flesh loses its consistency. In fact, that's exactly what you want. In the freezer the bananas will start looking bad, but look past mere appearances and anticipate the most incredible effect of freezing:

When you purée frozen bananas their texture loses the graininess and becomes completely smooth!!!!

There are other fruit that are improved when you freeze them, like grapes and lychees, but those are because the sugar intensifies and they taste sweeter. Bananas change consistency! I actually only figured this out when I made the "raw" banana cream pie and then had to freeze the leftovers. Eating the frozen pie (because I'd NEVER stick it in the microwave to defrost was SO good, like an ice cream cake, because all of a sudden the little pieces of nuts and rough texture were gone, magically smoothed out by the miracles of freezing.

So:
1. Stick your bananas in the freezer - however many you want since there are no other ingredients to add and with which to balance quantities (You can pre-peel and roughly chop them before freezing to make the next step easier if you want)
2. Remove from freezer, peel, and roughly chop the bananas. Once they're slightly thawed this will work better, and the ice cream will blend a little more easily.
3. Place in blender or food processor and blend on a high speed.

The only problem is because this is so thick and creamy it may not blend too well in a blender, so be careful pushing it down with a spatula. Too many spatulas have met their end this way. Also, too many eyes have ended up with rubber in them from flying spatulas...

My favourite time to eat ice cream is when it has just started to melt a little, that helps get rid of the granulated texture, so this is perfect, since while the ice cream's been puréeing its also been warming up, melting a little, and smoothing out your delicious treat.

Here's the original website. You can add things, like peanut butter or honey, but try it once on its own before you start to experiment. If you like bananas, and you like ice cream, you'll like this.

Dairy-Free Vanilla Custard

This dairy-free vanilla custard is not vegan, but I made it with almond milk instead of regular milk or cream. The recipe is about as low-fat as you can make custard while keeping the rich egg yolk flavour. It's a beautiful recipe from Alice Medrich's Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Desserts and doubles as a pastry cream for éclairs, cream puffs and trifles. It also works perfectly well on its own. I basically only made this because I had two (should have been four...but it's kind of better this way, since I would have had to quadruple the recipe) egg whites left over after making the Master's Potluck's two chestnut tortes and there's only so much mayonnaise or hollandaise sauce a girl wants or needs. In my case, not much. Custard, on the other hand...

Ingredients:
6 tbsp sugar
8 tsp flour
8 tsp cornstarch
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 cups milk (almond, soy, cow's)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Basically all you do for this recipe is thicken milk and eggs on the stove. The only way to mess it up is to let the eggs scramble, so make sure you whisk while you pour the hot milk over the eggs.

1. Combine the sugar, flour, and cornstarch in a large bowl. Add all the eggs and yolks and beat them for 1-2 minutes. They should be thick and almost white.

2. Scald the milk in a medium saucepan (until the edges just start to bubble a little. It shouldn't boil) and pour it slowly over the egg mixture in a thin stream like olive oil, whisking constantly until all the milk is added. I kept beating with the handheld mixer here because I didn't have enough hands to whisk and pour at the same time. I foresaw the eggs tumbling to the floor that way (you can put a kitchen towel under the bowl to help keep it from moving around of its own accord). The liquid ended up a bit frothy, though, so you kind of need to beat the froth down into the liquid afterward, or you'll have a hard time telling when the mixture has thickened in the next step.

3. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and cook on medium heat, stirring constantly with a whisk, reaching all over the bottom and sides of pan, until the mixture thickens a lot. When you think it's had enough, keep cooking and whisking an extra 30-45 seconds. Then scrape your custard into a clean bowl and whisk in the vanilla. Cool. Cover. Refrigerate.

Sprinkle with blueberries or raspberries, or chocolate shavings...really, anything that isn't white or yellow (for contrast) to garnish. Serve in individual dishes or one large communal bowl, depending on the circumstances. For the potluck individual dishes didn't make sense, but for a more traditional dinner I'd definitely serve individually. I actually have another custard recipe that I made a few days after this, and it's fun (if you're a custard geek like me) to see the comparison. Hold in there for Buttered Rum-Raisin Cream Pie with a Partridgeberry Glaze.