Bananas Foster Ice Cream is a creamy, dreamy summer treat that tastes just like the famous dessert- full of buttery bananas, cinnamon and rum!
For as long as I can remember Bananas Foster has been one of my all time favorite desserts. I first tried it in high school as a sauce poured over vanilla ice cream. I fell in love and have been finding ways to recreate those wonderful flavors ever since. In the early days of my blog I made Bananas Foster Blondies, and last year these Bananas Foster Pancakes became my new favorite breakfast!
Still, the delicious sauce made from butter, brown sugar, bananas and rum is my favorite served over vanilla ice cream. It was only a matter of time before I’d try to merge the sauce/base concept into one- creating a delicious, creamy ice cream that is full of my favorite flavors.
The best discovery I made while working on this recipe was a fabulous custard base, which is creamier than any I’ve made, and has become my new favorite spring board for future ice cream flavors. Half of the bananas foster was blended into that to create a strong base ice cream, with the rest swirled in, giving each bite a full blast of foster-y goodness.
Traditional Bananas Foster uses dark rum to create the perfect flavor, and you can get away with using a little of that in this recipe and still allowing your ice cream to freeze. Since you won’t find much booze in my kitchen these days, I used rum extract. (Though I would have felt OK using the small amount of rum since it gets cooked down a bit with the bananas.) Either option or a mix of both would work just fine.
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 cups half-and-half cream
- 8 egg yolks
- ½ cup white sugar
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup butter (half stick)
- ¼ cup packed brown sugar
- 3 ripe bananas, sliced
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1½ tablespoons dark rum, OR 1½ teaspoons rum extract
- In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, combine the cream and half and half heating until just simmering, stirring frequently. Turn the heat down to low.
- Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and salt in a large bowl until thoroughly combined.
- Slowly and carefully pour about ½ cup of the cream mixture into the egg yolk mixture with one hand, while whisking constantly with the other. Pour the egg mixture back into the saucepan with the remaining hot cream, and whisk constantly over medium-low heat until the mixture thickens and will coat the back of a spoon, 5 to 8 minutes. Do not let mixture boil.
- Pour the custard base into a bowl and allow to cool while you prepare the bananas.
- In a large skillet, over medium-high heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and whisk together until the sugar as dissolved into the butter.
- Add the bananas, stirring to coat them in the butter/sugar mixture. Reduce heat to medium and cook for about 5 minutes, until bananas are tender. Add the rum and cinnamon and stir well, simmering for an additional 2 minutes.
- Add half of the banana mixture to the custard base, using an immersion blender right in the bowl to pureé until smooth. (You can also carefully pour the custard and bananas into a regular blender and pureé that way.)
- Cover the custard mixture and chill in the fridge for 6-8 hours or overnight.
- Use a wooden spoon to slightly break the remaining banana pieces up, and store them in the fridge until after you churn your ice cream.
- When the custard is chilled- churn it according to your ice cream maker's instructions and layer it with the remaining banana mixture in your container. Freeze for a few hours to firm it up.
This recipe is the first part of a full week of Frozen Treat yummyness! The lovely Brandy and Katie have organized a group of bloggers to give you a week of Ice Cream, Sorbet, Popsicles, Slushies, Milkshakes and more! We also have a week of giveaways!! Today’s is sponsored by Zoku and OXO. Check out the widget below for details and to enter!!
Also- make sure to check out the frozen deliciousness created by the rest of the participants! We’ll be back with another round on Wednesday!!
Mango Raspberry Pops from Katie’s Cucina
Mango Margarita Boozesicles from Nutmeg Nanny
Blood Orange Chocolate Popsicles from Rachel Cook’s
Cookies & Ice Cream Pie from Chocolate & Carrots
Pineapple Mint Popsicles from Sweet Remedy
3-Minute Easy Cherry Chocolate Sorbet from An Edible Mosaic
Chocolate Blueberry Crumble Pop from Cooking with Books
Easy Frozen Cherry Pie from Cook the Story
1 Ingredient Cherry Ice Cream from Foodie with Family
White Chocolate Buttermint Ice Cream from Eats Well With Others
Strawberry Cheesecake Popsicles from Damn Delicious
Tracey says
What a genius idea, I’ve never seen bananas foster ice cream anywhere! I will definitely be trying this before summer is over :)
Marnely Rodriguez Murray says
Oh I am a Bananas Foster LOVER and love that you mixed some into the base and then folded the rest – extra flavor!
Rachel @ Baked by Rachel says
My husband would absolutely love this!! Love the styling too ;)
Sophie says
OH my gosh, yum.
Stephanie @ Girl Versus Dough says
Oh my yum! I’m actually allergic to bananas but the sound of adding brown sugar, cinnamon and rum alone to my ice cream sounds magical.
Rebecca {Foodie with Family} says
Oh Audra. This looks decadently fabulous. If you lived any closer I’d beat down your apartment door for a bowl of this!
Elisa @ Insalata di Sillabe says
Looks delicious! Believe me or not, I’ve never heard of bananas foster dessert before! Now you made me curious so I can’t wait to try the classic version out as well as this one :)
xo, Elisa
Mimi @ Culinary Couture says
That second picture is gold! I’ve never tried banana foster but based on it’s ingredients, I imagine that I would love it!
Chung-Ah | Damn Delicious says
Boozy ice cream?! Where do I sign up?!
Georgia @ The Comfort of Cooking says
What a delicious, summer flavor for ice cream! Oh, what I wouldn’t do for one of those cones right now…
Kelli @ The Corner Kitchen says
This ice cream is calling my name! What an amazing ice cream combo!
katie says
yum! bananas fosters ice cream… who would have thought to create such an awesome flavor! Must try soon! Thanks again for participating this week in Frozen Treat week!
Faith (An Edible Mosaic) says
What a fun ice cream flavor! It sounds absolutely perfect and your photos are GORGEOUS!!
Katrina @ Warm Vanilla Sugark says
This sounds positively dreamy!! Love bananas foster ANYTHING!
DessertForTwo says
You just froze one of my favorite desserts. And I love you for it :)
Joanne says
I haven’t had bananas foster since I turned it into banana bread last year and so I think I’m long overdue for a revival! This ice cream sounds AMAZING.
Heather @ Sugar Dish Me says
I used to work in a place that fired Bananas Foster tableside. OMG it was soooooo good. I’m totally making this! I haven’t had Bananas Foster in forever! And stuffing all that flavor into ice cream was pretty genius I gotta say.
Samantha says
What a wonderful ice cream flavor. I love the cones, too. They add such a nice crunch to ice cream.
Nessa says
This is dreamy!
Kate | Food Babbles says
I loooove bananas foster and this ice cream sounds like it perfectly captures the wonderful flavor of classic bananas foster. I will definitely be giving this a try.
Jennie @themessybakerblog says
This ice cream sounds like a dream come true. I love all of the banana love.
Katrina @ In Katrina's Kitchen says
What pretty pictures!!
Nutmeg Nanny says
I will pay you a million trillion dollars if you bring this to BSP :) *I don’t really have a million trillion dollars so if you bring me some ice cream please don’t hold me to the money part…
Caroline @ chocolate & carrots says
Oh wow! Amazingly creamy ice cream! I can’t wait to try that!
Scotty says
Thank you for the good writeup. It in truth used to be a amusement account it.
Glance complicated to far introduced agreeable from you!
By the way, how could we keep in touch?
Nancy says
This banana fosters ice cream sounds absolutely yummy. Can’t wait to try. Is there a functional reason you didn’t add vanilla extract, or just taste preference?