So my awesome and amazing friend Ashley (blatant sucking up....) sent me this link for Banana-Ginger Granitas and asked me to try it out for her. I agreed for several reasons. 1--I hate bananas, so this definitely falls under the heading of something I should try out. 2--We have an ice cream maker. I would love to be able to get rid of it and this was the second mention I had heard about blending up frozen bananas to make ice-cream-machine-less ice cream. 3--Because she asked nicely and I am a nice person :-)
So I went out and bought some bananas. I got the ripest ones I could find because the other article I had seen about banana ice cream had mentioned that if they aren't ripe, there tends to be a bitter aftertaste. So...
I sliced up the bananas and put them in the freezer. The next day I took them out, took out some ginger-ale and the food processor and set it up.
Nervous about having to eat bananas for the first time in years, but excited about potentially finding a way to get rid of my ice cream machine, I set about grinding them up. There were big chunks of banana that refused to grind. It is entirely possible that my food processor just wasn't burly enough to take them down but it was incredibly frustrating to keep grinding and grinding and just having it...not work. So I paused and figured I might as well taste it to see if it was worth it. I opened it up and saw this:
Wildly unappetizing. I tasted it. Yep....tasted like bananas. To be fair, the part that had blended did have an ice cream-like consistency. So that part was a success. I thought maybe I'd add more ginger ale. The original recipe called for only 2 tablespoons which seemed like a tiny amount to go with 2 whole bananas. And....it didn't help. I added a little honey to it. No go. It was gross. The husband tried it out and he didn't hate it although he thought it was pretty weird. He ended up eating a bunch of it. However, I don't count that as a point in this recipe's favor as there is a reason I refer to him as "The human garbage disposal". He'll eat pretty much anything.
So I count this as....well....not a failure! I still tried something new, food-wise and technique-wise. But definitely not a success. So for now, the ice cream machine will stay on the shelf, taking up space. But there is still hope! I recently found another recipe for non-machine related ice cream that I am much more hopeful about! So....stay tuned for that!
So I went out and bought some bananas. I got the ripest ones I could find because the other article I had seen about banana ice cream had mentioned that if they aren't ripe, there tends to be a bitter aftertaste. So...
I sliced up the bananas and put them in the freezer. The next day I took them out, took out some ginger-ale and the food processor and set it up.
Nervous about having to eat bananas for the first time in years, but excited about potentially finding a way to get rid of my ice cream machine, I set about grinding them up. There were big chunks of banana that refused to grind. It is entirely possible that my food processor just wasn't burly enough to take them down but it was incredibly frustrating to keep grinding and grinding and just having it...not work. So I paused and figured I might as well taste it to see if it was worth it. I opened it up and saw this:
Wildly unappetizing. I tasted it. Yep....tasted like bananas. To be fair, the part that had blended did have an ice cream-like consistency. So that part was a success. I thought maybe I'd add more ginger ale. The original recipe called for only 2 tablespoons which seemed like a tiny amount to go with 2 whole bananas. And....it didn't help. I added a little honey to it. No go. It was gross. The husband tried it out and he didn't hate it although he thought it was pretty weird. He ended up eating a bunch of it. However, I don't count that as a point in this recipe's favor as there is a reason I refer to him as "The human garbage disposal". He'll eat pretty much anything.
So I count this as....well....not a failure! I still tried something new, food-wise and technique-wise. But definitely not a success. So for now, the ice cream machine will stay on the shelf, taking up space. But there is still hope! I recently found another recipe for non-machine related ice cream that I am much more hopeful about! So....stay tuned for that!
Hahaha ok yeah...2 tbsp of Ginger Ale definitely doesnt seem like enough. I didnt pay enough attention to the recipe to catch that part. If it makes you feel any better I just made a Chile Oil Shrimp recipe that just said to use the chile oil "generously". Weeeeell apparently what I consider generous is not what the writer of the recipe considers generous, burned like hell going in and coming out the next day.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the purpose for this recipe. Was it to make pureed bananas?
ReplyDelete