Malted Banana Ice-Cream

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As I sit here, on standby (FML, as the youngsters seem to be saying these days), I realise that it is the first of the month.


Will July be when I start blogging with the increased frequency that I used to? Will I go back to being the kind of nice, friendly blogger who comments on others' posts and engages in conversations on Twitter and Facebook? Well, we can hope. There are going to be big changes coming up anyway, so you never know!

I am freshly back from holiday, and suffering from the associated exhaustion that such a state entails. Am I the only one who thinks we should be entitled to a post-holiday holiday to get over the first? Maybe it's my age (I turned 32 last week).

I spent a week in Malaga, visiting a former flyer friend who just opened a hotel in the old town there. In actual fact, he was in Ibiza for most of the time we were in town, but nonetheless, I took the opportunity to eat as many local treats as one possibly can without the help of a guide (I manage that rather well!) and am going to try to rustle up some of them for these very pages.

One of my favourite finds was a local heladeria, which had such wonderful ice-cream I can hardly bear thinking about it. Thus, I have been in full chilled dessert making mode since coming back home. I have turned out fairly decent strawberry gelato, but the way I do it uses raw eggs and I know what you lot are like about raw eggs in food, having received a raft of emails about leaving them out when I shared my Alphonso mango tiramisu recipe years ago. So I am giving you an egg free malted banana version (which is inspired by a dessert let down I had recently in Bill's - does anyone ever come away from there feeling satisfied? I find it all style and no substance). You don't need an ice-cream maker: this is no churn. Hurrah.

Enjoy.

Malted Banana Ice-Cream

You will need:

1 tin of condensed milk (397g)
300ml double cream
2 ripe bananas, mashed
4 tbsp Horlicks, or other malted milk powder
2 tbsp vodka (optional, but keeps texture smooth during long storage in freezer)

1. Whisk everything together until thick and airily creamy. Freeze. That's it.

Banana Refrigerator Cake

OMG. Say you don't.

There's been something of a casein build-up in my fridge recently. Remember all the hoo hah several years ago about butter mountains and wine lakes in the EU? (A note to the unaware - that's what's known as figurative speech. Excited foreign nationals need not rush to book air tickets to Brussels just yet.) Well, it's happened to me. Owing to a top secret, can't-tell-you-anything-about-it-so-don't-even-ask project of mine, I have had to buy 'a great deal' of cream cheese over the last few weeks and months. It has been what I would call horrendous/fabulous. Horrendous for the calories and fat; fabulous because I love cream cheese.

The point. I always take such a long time to get to the point.

Much of it has been languishing though - love me those schedule changes! - and needed using up. Along with some almost black bananas that I don't even remember buying - the to-ing and fro-ing of a flight attendant makes trips the supermarket unmemorable. (Though let's face it - there's nothing particularly memorable about the Co-Op on Crwys Rd anyway, is there?) And some white chocolate bar things that were from... I don't even know where they were from. How did that happen? My cupboards need sorting.

So I called up Rose Levy Beranbaum and asked her, 'Rose, what am I going to do with all of this junk in my kitchen?'

She said, 'Boy, that's what my darned book is for. Now get off the phone, I'm expecting a call.'

(Rose doesn't actually speak like that at all. She's a very articulate and well spoken lady.)

So, a return to Rose's Heavenly Cakes it was. I have mentioned how much I love the book before, so will spare you this time. But I do. I love it, and all the more so for this banana refrigerator cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting.

You have read correctly. I said banana refrigerator cake with white chocolate cream cheese frosting.

The deal here is that there's no butter in the cake, so it stays soft in the fridge, which is where you need to keep it since it is covered with lovely white chocolate cream cheese frosting. (This is making me drool...)

Reader: I have made a lot of cakes for this blog, to most which you have born witness. I say 'most' because I burned one t'other day on account of the gin gimlets, and nobody is bearing witness to that. Not for nuthin' and no how. The thing is, I don't think I have ever made a better tasting one. Ever. Such is the power of the Rose.



Let's just get to the recipe. I can feel some of you are actually going to make this one. I simplified Rose's frosting, but you can get the ur-recipe here.

Banana Refrigerator Cake
adapted from Rose's Heavenly Cakes

You will need:

2 very ripe bananas
125 ml crème fraîche or sour cream
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
170g caster sugar (or soft brown sugar, I didn't have any)
125ml vegetable oil
200g plain flour (cake flour, should such be available)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

1. Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.
2. Sift together the flour, salt and leavening.
3. Mash the bananas and mix in the sour cream and eggs. I do this with electric beaters in a large bowl, but Rose suggests a food processor. You must make up your own mind.
4. When the mixture is smooth, beat in the oil and sugar. Then add the dry ingredients and beat on high speed for 2 minutes.
5. Pour the mixture into the pan, and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the cake tests done.
6. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a wire rack. The cake humps slightly in the centre, but upon cooling, it's less pronounced.
7. Frost.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

You will need:

200g full fat cream cheese
200g white chocolate

1. Melt the chocolate and cool slightly.
2. Stir in the cream cheese.