Anna Sultana’s Easy Banana Ice Cream & Frozen Bananas Treats

A few weeks ago there was a quirky little story floating around the internet.

Seems an 87-year-old woman had left a unique legacy for her grandchildren - a refrigerator full of bananas. 

To be exact: 3,400 bananas.

Poor old Mrs. Gibson had always meant to make a loaf or two of banana bread, and, well, she died regretting that she never got around to doing the deed.

Time just flew and well, she was busy with other things. It happens.

Hopefully her heirs, duly named in her will, would enjoy the fruits of her labour.

Okay… it was a joke. Just a little something to give us all a giggle.

But it reminded me of a quick little dessert Ma threw together every so often.

It really is hard to figure out how much to buy for a family of seven. 

I mean, you don’t want food to go bad, but then you don’t want run short, especially of something as healthy as fresh fruit.

Picture it… seven people reaching for a banana and there are only six in the bowl. 

It could get ugly.

So, Ma bought extra and sometimes she had the opposite problem - bananas which had turned from gold to freckled to brown. 

And they changed so quickly when it got hot in the summer!

Well, Ma wasn’t one to throw away food, so she went from plan A, serving fresh, as is, to plan B, using it as an ingredient in a recipe. Hopefully an easy quick recipe. Same as there was a limit to the fresh fruit’s life span, there was a limit to her energy and time.

Of course Ma knew that past their prime bananas were great for making:

Anna Sultana’s Spiced Banana Cake 

Anna Sultana’s Banana Oatmeal Crumb Cake

Anna Sultana’s Banana Pound Cake With Caramel Glaze

Anna Sultana’s Pumpkin Smoothie

Anna Sultana’s Banana Bread

Her breads and cakes were terrific desserts during the winter. 

In the summer, not so much.

Summer is the time for something cold, like ice cream.

The mushy, spotty bananas had lost their je ne sais quoi for serving in a banana split.

But they were just perfect for Ma to use to make a quick ice cream.

Some market chains regularly bag a couple of pounds of over ripe bananas and sell them for a dollar.

Next time you see them grab yourself one or two to make yourself some ice cream.

It’s easy and doesn’t need an ice cream maker or other ingredients.

Unless you want to get creative… and super delicious.

Hints:

The banana chunks will keep in the freezer for at least a week.

One large banana will make about a cup of ice cream.

Some addition ideas:

A Tablespoon of peanut butter

A drizzle of honey

A half Cup of chocolate chips

Berries

Chopped almonds or pecans or walnuts or peanuts or any kind of nut

A Tablespoon of Nutella

A Tablespoon of cocoa powder

Half a teaspoon of cinnamon, cardamom, or ginger

A few drops of peppermint oil and some chocolate chips

A few drops of vanilla and a few frozen cherries (chocolate is good in this, too)

A Tablespoon or two of cocoa powder and some unsweetened coconut

A Tablespoon or two of peanut butter with a half Cup of raisins

You could make a big batch of ice cream in advance. Set out an assortment of additions and let your guests add their favourites to their own servings.

You can also make a Banana Fruit Smoothie. 

Just place a few chunks of frozen banana, along with any other fruits you’d like, in a blender. Add a spoon of honey and a cup of milk or yogurt. Blend until smooth.

The smoothie mixture could also be placed in a popsicle tray. 

Add sticks, allow to freeze a few hours, and you’ll have a frozen treat for the kiddies.

                        Banana Ice Cream

Peel the ripe bananas and cut them into 1/2 inch chunks.

Place the chunks in a plastic freezer bag or container to freeze at least two hours until solid (overnight is better).

Place about a cup of banana chunks in the blender or food processor and pulse or blend until smooth. Occasionally scrape down so that all chunks are used.

You want a smooth and creamy frozen dessert, like soft serve ice cream, so don’t over-process or you’ll melt the ice cream.

Add your favourite additions (optional - see Hints) and pulse for a few seconds.

If you’re not adding anything, blend for a few more seconds to aerate the ice cream.

You can eat the ice cream immediately, but it will be quite soft.

It can be stored in an airtight container in the freezer for a firmer dessert.

If you don’t want to mess a blender, you could make 

                        Chocolate, Nut-Covered Frozen Bananas Treats

Melt chocolate (dark, semi-sweet or milk) in a bowl over boiling water or in the microwave, stirring occasionally and scraping the sides of the bowl.

Place wax paper over a baking sheet for easier clean up.

Push a popsicle stick inside each banana.

Dip the bananas in the melted chocolate, and carefully place them on the wax paper.

Sprinkle your freshly dipped bananas with chopped peanuts, pecan, walnuts, etc. 

Your choice to have nuts or not.

Freeze for at least an hour or until frozen.

About the sky this week and next, thanks to the folks at The Farmers' Almanac…

July 20 - Look to the eastern horizon about an hour before sunrise to see Venus and the waning crescent Moon.

July 21 - The waning crescent Moon will be at perigee, its closest point to the Earth. 

An easy way to remember: Apogee has an “A” = Away, so Perigee = closest.

July 23 - New Moon at 5:46 a.m.  Take my word for it. You can’t see it.

July 24 - Almost due south at around 11 p.m. is Sagittarius, the archer. Some people see a teapot here. If you search this area with binoculars on a dark, moonless night, you’ll be rewarded with a night filled with discoveries — you can find at least 15 Messier objects, including M8 (Lagoon); M17, (Omega); M20, (Trifid).

July 28 - Look to the southwest at dusk to find the Moon, Jupiter, and Spica, the brightest start in the constellation Virgo the Maiden, forming a trio in the night sky.

Anna Sultana’s Ice Creams: Maltese Style, American Style, with Orion and The False Dawn

A little over a month ago I posted the recipe for Ma’s Gelatt, a traditional Maltese recipe for an ice cream dessert.

And, as with most traditional Maltese recipes for anything - especially a dessert - there was more than one traditional Maltese frozen dairy dessert recipe.

Crema is very easy to make, as you can see:

Pour the contents of a 354 ml can evaporated milk into a bowl.

Cover the bowl, and place it in the freezer for an hour.

Take it out and beat in 6 Tablespoons sugar and the juice of 1 lemon.

Cover the bowl and place it back in the freezer for an hour.

Remove the bowl, beat the mixture and serve.

What could be easier?

Ma also made an American style ice cream.

This recipe calls for eight large egg yolks, so it’s not great if you’re worried about cholesterol content.

Nobody in the 1950s worried about cholesterol.

Our mothers had received government issued papers from our teachers saying how important it was for us to eat eggs.

Those were the days when moms regarded eggnogs as the perfect drink for any and, if possible, every meal.

Our meals were cholesterol covered with cholesterol.

Picture sitting down to this dinner at least once a week: 

a nice thick slab of fried liver, served with creamed corn dotted with butter, and a mound of mashed potatoes with gravy.

Of course there was a pitcher of egg nog, flavoured with Ovaltine.

None of this water crap for us when our loving mothers could give us even more protein, vitamins and minerals.

Oh, well, they meant well.

Ma got an ice cream recipe from another Mom, who loved it because it was a fun way to get a bit more nutrition into the kids.

Her friend had said it was as good as a glass of V8 for sneaking in the vitamins.

If your Mom wasn’t as sneaky, V8 was a canned drink that was made from water and the concentrate of eight vegetables: beets, celery, carrots, lettuce, parsley, watercress, spinach and tomato.

For our mothers it was a slippery slope from sneaking vegetables to sneaking eggs.

So Ma was happy to get the ice cream recipe.

But, of course, it would need a bit of her tweaking.

Ma added her own touches and made this when she wanted a little something extra nutritious to balance out a lighter meal that seemed to need a bit more cholesterol.

Which was just fine with us.

Hey, it was the 50s!

Hints:

Add the heated half and half very gradually to the egg yolks. This heats the egg yolks slowly and tempers them, which prevents the yolks from cooking.

When you are beating the frozen mixture be sure to beat in the frozen bits so that it will be smooth.

If you’d like a bit of variety, you could add chocolate chips or candied peel or roasted chopped nuts (some, such as almonds, are better if you roast the chopped nuts and let them cool before adding).

Want a more ice cream parlour effect? Add crushed chocolate cookies or chopped chocolate bars or brownies.

Or anything else that suits you or your family.

If you are adding anything, add it to the mixture after you’ve removed it from the freezer after it’s been frozen for an hour, when it is similar to soft serve.

Fold in your addition, then repeat the mixing and freezing until fully frozen. 

Don’t know what to do with the leftover egg whites?

They’d be perfect for Ma’s Dead Man's Bones cookies or Almond Macaroons.

                        Vanilla Ice Cream 

Place in a medium saucepan 

2 1/2 Cups half and half cream

Stirring often, heat over medium heat until very hot but not boiling. 

Remove from heat and set aside.

Place in a large bowl 

8 large egg yolks

1 Cup sugar

Whisk until well blended and slightly thickened. 

Continue whisking and gradually pour in the heated half and half. 

Pour the mixture into the saucepan.

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until slightly thickened. 

Check for doneness by dipping a spatula into the mixture to coat it entirely. 

Let the spatula cool a few minutes, then run your finger along it. If the line holds, the mixture is ready.

Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.

Stir in 

2 1/2 Cups heavy cream

2 Tablespoons vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 8 hours or overnight.

Pour the chilled mixture into a 9 × 13 inch baking pan. 

Place in the freezer for 30 minutes, then remove and beat the mixture. 

Return to the freezer, and continue to beat every 30 minutes or so, until the ice cream is too stiff to beat.

Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container and freeze.

Leave to thaw for about ten minutes before serving.

Scoop and serve.

If you’re in the mood for an alcoholic recipe, check out Carmela’s Gelato Affogato.

It means "Drowned Ice Cream" and is easy to make - ice cream covered with rum and espresso coffee.

Definitely not for the kiddies.

About the sky this week, thanks to the folks at The Farmers' Almanac…

If you set your alarm clock for around 5:15 a.m. this week, you’ll be able to enjoy Orion, the Hunter ascending the sky. About two-thirds of the way up from the eastern horizon to the point directly overhead (the zenith), is the brilliant yellowish star, Capella. About halfway between Capella and the eastern horizon are the two bright stars marking the heads of Gemini, the Twins, Pollux and Castor. Straight out to the right of Capella is the fuzzy patch of light marking the famous Pleiades star cluster, also known as the “Seven Sisters.” Using Orion’s belt, drop an imaginary line almost straight down to the southeast horizon and you’ll find the brightest of all stars, Sirius.

August 30 – This is a great time to spot the Zodiacal Light, a hazy pyramid of light also known as “False Dawn.” It looks like dawn coming over the horizon but it’s fooled many a sky watcher.

September 1 - New Moon. Just enjoy Orion.

Anna Sultana’s Gelatt - Ice Cream, Maltese Style, and The Full Buck Moon

I recently posted the recipes that had been on the back of Safeway’s 2.5 Kg bags of Instant Skim Milk Powder.

If you missed the posts, the recipes were for Tuscan White Bean and Zucchini Soup, as well as Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake, and Popover Oven Pancakes.

They’re easy to make, so why not check them out?

As I said, my friends and I were used to making the recipes found on the bags, and we miss them - and the economy-sized bags - now that Sobeys has decided to discontinue packaging large bags of powdered milk.

I am sure that if Ma had been living in Canada, she would have missed the recipes, too.

About the dairy products Safeway carried… Ma would have bought the 4 litre sized buckets of ice cream that are still available at both Safeway and Sobeys.

She knew we would happily enjoy a dish of ice cream on a muggy July day.

Vanilla ice cream is always easy to dress up with different sauces and fruits.

Anything would have been better than Pop’s purchase of 576 bars of strawberry shortcake after Bungalow Bar went out of business.

Six and a half months of strawberry shortcake ice cream bars for dessert, day after day, were more than enough for us.

I mean, you couldn’t add anything to change their taste.

Every so often Ma would make Gelatt - Maltese Ice Cream.

It was easy and economical, and reminded her of the treats she enjoyed when she was a kid growing up in Hamrun, Malta.

She always mentioned that it was served at wedding and holy communion receptions, and that it would be garnished with crushed peanuts and finely chopped candied peel.

Ma's recipe made just enough for us to enjoy as dessert for a meal or two - not like when Pop bought those 576 bars!

If you’re in the mood for an alcoholic recipe, check out Carmela’s Gelato Affogato.

It means "Drowned Ice Cream" and is easy to make - ice cream covered with rum and espresso coffee.

Definitely not for the kiddies.

Hints:

If you have an ice cream machine use 300 ml water in the original mixture.

Add the candied peel and almonds to the mixture after you remove it from the freezer.

Add the unbeaten fresh cream to the mixture and follow the directions on your machine.

Ma didn’t have an ice cream machine, so she used the following recipe. 

                        Gelatt 

Roast

60 g almonds

Cool and finely chop the almonds.

Set aside.

Finely chop

120 g candied peel

Bring to a boil in a medium saucepan

250 ml water

Add the chopped candied peel.

Stir the peel around for two minutes to remove the sugar and syrup.

Drain and thoroughly dry the peel.

Mix in the chopped almonds.

Set aside. 

Pour into a medium saucepan

1 354 ml can evaporated milk

1200 ml water

Add 

90 g sugar

1 cinnamon stick (or 1 Tablespoon ground)

3 whole cloves (or 1/2 teaspoon ground)

grated rind of a lemon

Cook over a moderate heat until the mixture starts to boil.

Lower the heat and, stirring occasionally, simmer for eight minutes. 

Remove from heat. 

Add

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Stir to combine and allow to cool.

Strain it through a sieve into a container that has a cover. 

Cover and freeze it for about 35 minutes.

While the mixture is in the freezer, place in a large mixer bowl

400 ml fresh cream 

Beat to a thick consistency.

Remove the mixture from the freezer. 

Stir in the prepared candied peel and the almonds. 

Fold the beaten cream into the mixture.

Cover and chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Remove the mixture from the freezer and beat with a spatula.

Cover and return to the freezer for another 20 minutes.

Remove from the freezer and beat with a spatula.

For extra smoothness, give it another freeze and beat cycle.

When ready to serve, leave to thaw for about ten minutes.

Slice and serve with a sprinkling of cinnamon.

About the sky this week, thanks to the folks at The Farmers' Almanac…

July 18: The Moon and Pluto will be very close.

July 19: Full Buck Moon 6:57 PM. The visible Moon is fully illuminated by direct sunlight. 

July is normally the month when the new antlers of buck deer push out of their foreheads in coatings of velvety fur. It was also often called the Full Thunder Moon, for the reason that thunderstorms are most frequent during this time. Another name for this month’s Moon was the Full Hay Moon.

July 24: The Moon will be in ascending node. This is the point at which the Moon’s orbit crosses, from south to north, the plane of the Earth’s orbit.

July 26: Last Quarter 7:00 P.M. In this phase, the Moon appears as a half Moon.

July 27: Delta Aquarids meteor shower. Best viewed before dawn and will last three days. The last quarter Moon should not interfere.

July 28: Saturn and Uranus will be at their highest. 

July 30: At dusk Mercury will be less than 1º from Regulus.

July 31: Moon will be at its highest.

Anna Sultana’s Baked Alaska for Valentine’s Day

Guess what!
Valentine’s Day is on the day after tomorrow.

I know… We all had such great plans.

Just like we planned to do stuff for Christmas.

Then life got in the way.

You’ve got it… the big plans can’t be done.

Don’t panic.

Handle it like a birthday.

The dessert will make the meal.

It just has to be pretty.

Candles would help.

Go for the sizzle, not the steak.

Steak, yeah, that could work for the main course.

On a budget?  Serve burgers with a gravy and call it Salisbury Steak.

Back to the dessert…

Got some leftover cake, ice cream and egg whites?

Great - you can serve Baked Alaska.

Hints:

You can do most of the work in advance.
You just have to do the browning a la blowtorch (or broiler) before serving.

Either a baked brownie or a spongecake would work best for this.

Also a pound cake, or a regular white or chocolate cake would do.

Even quicker - thick slices from the bottom of two cupcakes would work.

You could put the meringue in a piping bag with a plain tip to make a meringue "beehive" around each scoop of ice cream: start at the bottom of the cake and pipe a ring of meringue around the ice cream so that it completely covers the cake edge.
Continue to pipe meringue around the ice cream, making sure you completely cover the ice cream.

Finish with a small circle at the top.

Or you could scoop and plaster the meringue on the ice cream and cake.
Don't smooth it - the meringue tips will get a nice browned effect.

If you have a small blow torch, turn your torch to a medium low setting, and use it to brown the outside of the meringues instead of using the broiler.

You could add a squiggle of chocolate or raspberry sauce on each plate.

Or not.

                        Baked Alaska

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Using a 3 inch round glass, cut 2 circles out of the cake, and place them on the foil.

Leaving a small margin of cake all the way around, place a scoop of ice cream (any flavour) in the centre of each piece of cake.

Place the cake and ice cream in the freezer and freeze for at least 4 hours.

The meringue

Place in a medium mixer bowl

3 egg whites

Beat at medium speed until stiff peaks are formed.

Add gradually, beating constantly

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

With mixer on high speed, beat egg white / sugar mixture for 5 minutes, until the meringue forms very stiff peaks.

Remove the cake / ice cream bases from the freezer.

Cover one cake / ice cream with half of the meringue. 

Repeat with remaining meringue on the other cake / ice cream.

Return them to the freezer until ready to serve (see above in hints).

Just before serving

Turn your oven to broil.

Remove the pan holding the meringue-covered desserts from the freezer.

Place the baking sheet under the broiler.
Be sure to leave the door open and keep an eye on them.

You only need about 30 to 45 seconds for the meringues to turn brown.

Remove the pan from the oven.

Place one meringue in the centre of each plate, relax and serve.

Don't disagree when told how hard it must've been to make such a unique dessert.

Cream Puffs - Baked Sfingi / Zfineg ta San Guzepp or Valentine's Day Cream Puff Heart - Margaret Ullrich

It's official!

It's Spring!

Really Spring for us in Manitoba, where we've been having 

record breaking warm days!!

Hurrah for Spring!!

I wasn't surprised to see that my post on Carmela Soprano's Sfingi, Anna Sultana's Zfineg ta San Guzepp was the week's top post.

Hurrah for Saint Joseph!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful time.

One thing that bloggers do, besides writing, is check what people are searching for when they find one's blog. 

Really, we care.

So I just checked my Search Keywords. 

And I was saddened to see a couple of searches for "sfingi +baked".

I'm so sorry that I didn't think of this sooner.

Doughnuts can be a bother.

And many wish to avoid them, for health or other reasons.

But everyone does want to celebrate.

So here's something you can use instead of doughnuts.

This recipe makes 10 large puffs.

If you're having company, increase ingredients.

It's a really easy recipe.

Honest, St. Joseph won't mind.

                        Cream Puffs

          

grease a large cookie pan         

preheat oven to 425º           

bake 45 minutes 

In a medium saucepan place

1 Cup water

1/2 Cup butter (or margarine)

Heat to boiling.

When the butter has melted, reduce heat.

Stir in

1 Cup flour

Stir until the mixture forms a ball.

Remove from heat.

Beat in, one at a time

4 eggs

Beat until smooth.

Drop mixture by spoonfuls onto pan.

Bake.

Cool.

Slice before serving and fill.

St. Joseph Sfingi filling

ricotta and candied citron 

or 

Zeppoli ta San Guzepp

fill with sweet ricotta, then close and dip in honey and chopped nuts

So much for St. Joseph's Day.

Cream puffs can also be filled with ice cream, custard or whipped cream.

They can be topped with fudge sauce, butterscotch sauce or sweetened berries.

If you want to make a fancy shape, like a heart for Valentine's Day,

Drop the spoonfuls of mixture close to each other so they'll touch.

They'll bake as one.

Just before serving, slice as you would a large cake, fill and serve.

Happy Holidays... or any days!!

Carmela Soprano's Strawberries in Asti Spumante and Anna Sultana's Fruit in Wine, Maltese Style

Last week we tried Carmela's Gelato Affogato.

This weekend is the anniversary of our immigrating to Canada.  So I thought we'd celebrate with a bottle of bubbly.  I also wanted another easy dessert from Entertaining with The Sopranos.  Hey, it's summer and even though the weather's been a bit off, I'm not in the mood to cook much.  

Carmela had the perfect recipe.  An easy fancy shmancy dessert for 2, Strawberries in Asti Spumante.   

The bottle, 750 milliliters, gave us wine for a toast, with plenty left for dessert.  Good thing I checked the recipe.  Along with the Asti Spumante I also needed to add a teaspoon of creme de cassis to each glass so the wine would look pink, then drop the 2 or 3 strawberries in each glass.
Okay... anniversaries only come once a year.

Ma would've laughed if she saw me placing perfectly good strawberries in a glass of Asti Spumante.  

I had my first ginger ale and red wine spritzer when I was about 4.  I grew up with fruit in wine.  But, there wasn't anything festive about it.  Ma often bought bags of marked down bruised fruit, like apples and peaches.  She would cut out the really nasty bits and slice what was left into cereal bowls.  She would then pour some wine over the fruit.  It was up to us if we wanted to sprinkle some sugar on top of the fruit.  

My Ma didn't think of wine as an alcoholic beverage.  She used it more as a cooking ingredient and flavoring agent.  There was always a 3 litre jug of red wine under the sink.  That was it.  Red wine.  Pop usually had a glass with his Sunday dinner.  

Carmela's Strawberries in Asti Spumante.  I'd make it again.  

Another recipe down.  Fifty-six more to go. 

Carmela Soprano's Gelato Affogato (Ice Cream with Rum and Espresso) and Frank Sultana's Bungalow Bars

This has been one wet Spring.
I managed to finish planting our garden just before the rains hit - again - on Thursday.  

To celebrate having finished my planting I picked something nice and easy from Entertaining with The Sopranos.
Hey, I never said I was Superwoman.

Carmela sure knows how to pad a cookbook.
Gelato Affogato, "Drowned Ice Cream" is a mixture of
3 Tablespoons dark rum
1 Cup hot espresso
slowly poured over a scoop of ice cream and served immediately.
That's it.
Can you believe she had that recipe fill a page and a photo of this masterpiece plastered on the opposite page.
What chutzpa!!  

Take a wild guess how often little A. J. knocked back the topping without the ice cream.  And Carmela wondered why he had problems.  

Ma had 3 kids and we had lots of hot, muggy days during summers in New York.
Of course we had ice cream.  We loved ice cream.  Without the boozed up coffee.    

But... there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
One summer day Pop came home quite pleased with himself.  His boss had bought out the stock of Bungalow Bar, a small local cheapy version of Good Humor ice cream.  Pop, without checking with Ma, had bought a dozen boxes of ice cream bars.

Okay... it was a good price.
Okay... we loved ice cream.  

Would it've killed Pop to get an assortment?
Pop just loaded up from the nearest stack.
Twelve boxes of strawberry shortcake ice cream bars.
Each box held 48 bars of strawberry shortcake.
That's 576 bars of strawberry shortcake.
Enough for 3 kids to have one each and every day for 192 days.
About 6 and a half months of strawberry shortcake ice cream bars.

The first few weeks we enjoyed them.
After a month, when Ma handed out the ice cream, we recited a little ditty I had composed:  

Bungalow bars taste like tar
The more you eat 'em, the sicker you are.

We resorted to gallows humor:
"If you're good, you'll get an ice cream.  If you're bad, you'll get 2."

Somehow we got through them.
We didn't buy strawberry ice cream for a long, long time.

But that was a while ago.
I'll eat ice cream, even strawberry, with or without the boozy coffee.

Another recipe down.  Fifty-seven more to go.