Are you like me and always have over ripened bananas in your kitchen? The toddler loves bananas, but how many can a two year old eat? So, sooner or later I have a bunch of black bananas on hand. I tend to peel and freeze them for later use, then end up with a freezer full of Ziploc bags of ripe banana!

I was recently inspired to use some of those bananas by a twitter friend and fellow food blogger Brenda of Cre8tive Kitchen who made a yummy banana cake with banana cream cheese frosting. I will be making that cake soon (since I still have 50 pounds of bananas in my freezer) but got the idea in my head to make ice cream instead.

I didn’t want just plain banana though, and thought of banana caramel, banana chocolate chip, banana nut…but then I had an “Ah-Ha” moment. Bananas Foster ice cream!

Bananas Foster is a wonderfully rich dessert introduced in 1951 at the famed Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans. You saute sliced bananas in butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, then flambe the sauce with rum. The warm sauce is then spooned over ice cream. I decided to combine the sauce flavors with the ice cream, and my version of Bananas Foster Ice Cream was born.

Bananas Foster Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup milk

6 egg yolks

3/4 cup granulated sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups mashed ripe banana

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup dark rum

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

Over medium heat, scald cream and milk. Meanwhile, in large bowl, whisk together yolks, sugar, salt and vanilla until light and creamy. Add small amount of hot cream to yolks, whisking quickly to temper the egg mixture. Gradually whisk in remaining cream. Place mixture over water bath, whisking constantly, until mixture has thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. Remove from water bath, place bowl immediately into ice bath. Stirring occasionally, cool mixture, then strain into another bowl. Cover and chill for at least one hour. This can be made up to two days ahead.

While custard is cooling puree the banana, brown sugar, rum, cinnamon and nutmeg until smooth. Chill this in refrigerator with the custard until ready to make the ice cream.

When ready to make the ice cream, stir the banana mixture and custard together, until well blended. Following the instructions for your ice cream maker, freeze the ice cream.

The ice cream will be a soft serve consistency when it comes out of the machine, so if desired place ice cream into freezer safe container and freeze for another hour or two.

This ice cream does have a small amount of alcohol in it, so you might not want to serve this to the kids. If you like, you can eliminate the rum.

A drizzle of chocolate sauce or hot fudge on top, or a scoop of this on a slice of pound or angel food cake will take you to dessert heaven!