Banana, Salted Caramel and px Sherry Parfait
This is a smooth delicious ice-cream and easy to make, banana with a toffee slightly caramelised flavour. It’s perfect for using up bananas which have past their best, you really want them over-ripe when there’s a high concentration of sugar and the banana flavour will come through strong.
The first time I made a banana parfait was a recipe I followed from one of Gordon Ramsey’s first books, Passion For Flavour. For me it’s still one of his best books, although the recipes are very much restaurant style you can take elements of it and simplify them. Gordon’s banana parfait recipe is flavoured with rum, a classic with bananas.
If you use this particular type of sherry it will add the caramelised note, but you can change it for rum, brandy or omit the alcohol completely. I’ve already mentioned on my post Ice-Cream Too Firm in the Freezer a parfait is the perfect dessert to make if you don’t have an ice-cream maker, doesn’t require churning or taking out while freezing in order to whisk it and break down large icicles. It’s a thick mousse frozen that stays smooth maintaing that texture when serving it.
If I was serving this up to the likes of Gregoire Michaud I would definitely sieve the banana purée to remove all the tiny bits of banana but I wasn’t. I’m a lazy cook and I didn’t, it doesn’t impact on the texture only on the appearing of it, you can just see from the photo below the little lumps of banana when the ice-cream starts to melt.
poured the mousse into a 3lb bread tin I had, but no reason why you can’t pour into a normal container as with any homemade ice-cream.
Almost a Disaster with the Parfait
I went back to Gordon’s banana parfait recipe to use it as base for this one but I had forgotten it requires you to whisk the egg yolks for an hour over a bain marie. I decided to look in Larousse Gastronomique for their recipe and it’s the hot syrup method whisked into the egg yolks. It was a disaster.
Trying to photograph it and making sure you have the stream of syrup steady at the correct temperature falling into the eggs is asking for trouble.
As you can see below there’s no lovely mousse to act as a base for the ice-cream but instead a split egg with hard little shards of crystalized sugar.
I decided to make the base the way I could guarantee it wouldn’t split, and where there was no tricky stream of sugar syrup and no waiting around for an hour over a bain marie like Gordon’s recipe.
Whole eggs and sugar over a bain marie as you do when making a Genoise, works every time.
Below left the mousse as it should be. Below right the split disaster.
Banana, Salted Caramel & px Sherry Parfait
- 4 large over-ripe bananas
- 1 lemon, juice
- 4 eggs
- 60g • 1/3 cup sugar (preferably caster / superfine)
- 250 grms • 1 cup whipping or double cream (thick cream)
- 300 grms • 1 cup dulce de leche
- 1 teaspoon of fine salt
- 2-3 tablespoons of px sherry (or other liqueur or omit it)
The banana and caramel mixture
Slice the bananas and toss them in the lemon juice to stop them from discolouration. Blend them into a smooth purée. Make a decision whether to sieve the purée or be lazy like me and don’t.
Add the dulce de leche to the banana puree along with the salt, mix well and check if it has a slightly over-salted taste, only just. I had to add an extra pinch, literally to mine. Always taste as you go along.
The Egg Mixture
Bring a small pan with some water to nearly boiling point. In a very large bowl add the eggs with the sugar. Place the bowl over the pan of hot water, making sure the bottom of the bowl doesn’t come into contact with the water.
Start whisking on medium whisk for 8-10 minutes, look at the clock because when doing something monotonous 10 minutes is far longer than you think.
You’ll see the mixture thicken up and looking ready within 3-4 minutes but you want to carry on whisking for a total of 8-10 mins.
You’re trying to lightly cook the eggs, changing the structure of them which will set and in turn help to stabilise the mousse. The egg yolks contain proteins and emulsifiers that help keep ice crystals small, making the texture smooth.
The other action of whisking is incorporating lots of air which will be stabilised by the egg protein, emulsifiers and fat globules and together with the fat from the cream will create and maintain smoothness.
From time to time while whisking pause and lift the bowl to check the water in the pan is not boiling.
When the time is up you are left with a very pale, thick creamy mixture which holds its shape.
The Cream
Whisk with cream until it’s whipped but not stiff…you want softly whipped. I always turn down my whisk to minimum when it starts to look ready to make sure I don’t over-whip.
All you’re doing now is bringing it all together. Fold the cream into the banana mixture until well blended.
Fold in the egg mixture.
It’s ready to be poured into container.
Lining the tin if using one is the best way to then turn the ice-cream out.
If you don’t want to do that you’ll have to warm the tin when ready to serve the ice-cream, either by plunging it in hot water for a few seconds or using a blow torch very quickly. Doing it this way you’ll melt the outside of the ice-cream a little but it will also mean you can serve it straight away.
Dark chocolate sauce goes very nicely with it and completes it as a dessert, but it’s equally good scooped as regular ice-cream.