Banana Berry Icecream

Reuben requested icecream recently when I was in the middle of a haze of glucose experimenting. I froze at the idea (ha ha, hope you like the pun) of him eating sugar and wondered how I could get around it. Actually no, I didn't. He eats very little sweet food, he's just not in to it (with a few exceptions). He turns his nose up at my baking and tells me his favourite food is broccoli (though I can hardly believe it). So I wasn't afraid of a little icecream.

It did, however, give me a great idea and moved me swiftly in to action. I had just been reading "Nigella Express" where she does a quick cheat's icecream - just whipped cream with additional flavours, thrown in to the freezer with no need to churn.

So while Reuben wasn't going to wait half a day for my clever idea to freeze, it was mixed and in the freezer almost before he had finished his bowl of Tip Top Neapolitan.

 

Conveniently, I had a whole lot of cream in my fridge, having bought that 2 litre bottle when I was making butter. I also had a few berries in the freezer, plenty of bananas and, of course glucose.

The amounts were based on what I had plus some very quick guess work. The result was not very sweet, and a stronger flavour would have been good, though we all loved it as it was. I used a whopping 500ml of cream because that's what I had. If you buy the usual 300ml bottle, I suggest still using the same amount of berries, banana and glucose as listed here, to up the flavour.

I'm also very excited about the million other flavour combinations that could be used. Do give it a go and I'd love to hear your suggestions. Sometime a while back I bought a rather below par brand of icecream and was horrified at the very long list of ingredients on the box, many of which I had no idea what they were (I know that doesn't necessarily make them bad, but...). I would love to always have homemade in my freezer, and can't wait to experiment. It's pretty heavy on the dairy, if you know what I mean. When it starts to melt, you know you're eating cream. But then if you take out all the junk, what is ice cream other then icy cream plus tasty bits?

 

Banana Berry Icecream

500 ml cream

1 banana

Handful frozen berries

2 tablespoons glucose *

Lightly whip the cream. Blitz the banana and berries, or crush with a fork. Stir fruit and glucose in to cream. Freeze. Wait at least 6 hours, if you can, before eating.

* For my second batch I included 1 tablespoon of Sweet Freedom for an extra kick of sweetness.