A few years back, we had a flavor request from a woman whose family had owned a diner in Richfield, MN many years ago. She reminisced about her favorite malt there, malted banana. So this week, malted banana makes it’s come back, except we’re going to give it a little twist. We’re going dairy free with this one. It’s been a while, and the thought of a malted banana ice cream wrapped up in a coconut milk base seemed too hard to pass up. So we give you this week’s flavor; Vegan Malted Banana
First, our malted vegan coconut milk base. For the malt, we use a dark malted barley powder that we picked up at our local home brew store. It gets blended with cane sugar, a touch of vanilla, and the Aroy-D coconut milk that we purchased at the best Asian market in the North, United Noodles! The Aroy-D has a nice clean coconut milk flavor with the proper fat content to make a rich vegan ice cream. For our coconut bases, we blend in a pinch of xanthan gum to help emulsify the fat molecules that often separate in coconut milk.
For the bananas, we’re using ripe organic bananas that we slice into 1/2 inch discs. They’re laid out on a sheet pan lined with a silpat and roasted in the oven for about 25 minutes. The roasting decreases water content and condenses flavor. We’re always trying to decrease water content of ingredient add-ins, as they can give the ice cream an unwanted icy texture. That’s a FrozBroz no no. After roasting, the bananas are pureed in a blender with some of the malted coconut base. The entire malted banana ice cream base is heated to 165 degrees, cooled, and is ready to churn.
The result is a rich vegan malted banana ice cream, that we hope, will someday peak nostalgia in one of our ice cream fans. Cheers Wendy!
Malted Banana – Vegan
2 Ripe Organic Bananas
2 14oz. cans coconut milk(preferably Aroy-D)
3/4 Cup Organic Cane Sugar
2 Tablespoons Dark Malt Powder(can be found at your local home brew shop)
3/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon xanthan gum
Instructions:
1. Roast Bananas: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut bananas into 1/2 inch discs and place on sheet pan lined with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper. Roast for 20-25 minutes until lightly browned.
2. Empty 2 cans of coconut milk into a blender. Add roasted bananas. Before blending, mix xanthan gum, malt powder and salt together in a bowl. With blender running on high, puree bananas in coconut milk and add powder mix. Once fully blended, pour mix into medium sauce pan. Add sugar and vanilla extract to base.
3. Cook/pasteurize ice cream base: Heat base, stirring occasionally, until temperature reaches 165-170 degrees. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature (an ice bath will do this in about 15-20 minutes). Put base in a clean container, cover, and chill in refrigerator overnight.
4. Churn ice cream base in ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions. Store ice cream in air tight container in freezer until chow time.
*Yields approximately 2.5 pints
If you’d rather not make it, you can be one of two lucky winners of this fabulous, scratch made craft ice cream in our weekly pint giveaway. Enter your name in the comments section here, or on our facebook page under the posted contest. Two winners will be drawn randomly on Friday 5/8/15 at 4pm. Winners must be able to pick up locally in Minneapolis. Prizes must be claimed by email within one week or we will redistribute. 🙂 Good luck!
I would love this! I have just become lactose intolerant and want to find a yummy ice cream to fill my need!