Banana-Blueberry Gelato

When the weather was predicted to be super hot late last week, I quietly rejoiced because it's been cool ever since I was back in town.  It's like waiting for the summer to begin, my friends told me that I didn't miss much in July anyway.  August is supposed to be very nice in Oregon, I'm counting on you, Mother Earth.  We all wish that school didn't end till the end of June and will not start again until middle of September so we all can enjoy the warmth.

So yeah, the weather hovers around the upper 90's.  It's dry hot that's quite uncomfortable at times, I try to keep my house cool by opening windows in the morning, and shut them midmorning when the sun's going high.  The plan to make gelato came just as I had quite a bit fresh blueberries in the frigde.  I wanted to whip it up pretty quickly, providing it's also made of fruits, blueberry is one of them.

The first thing I made was the blueberry sauce for it to be added to the gelato.  The sauce was supposed to be a bit thicker, but it turned out okay, I could still use it.  Once the sauce chills, time to make the gealto base.  It's quite simple since it only used milk, sugar, vanilla extract, mashed bananas, and a bit of lemon juice to prevent the bananas from getting brown.  My idea was also to make gelato popsicle because it's fun for my son to eat it like that.  And you know what, chocolate covered gelato-on-a-stick is even better!

Photographing melted gelato on a hot day was fun, the waiting time is rewarded with something cool in the end.

Banana-Blueberry Gelato

Yields about 9 3-oz portions



Blueberry Sauce:

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

3 tablespoons water

1 1/2 cups fresh bluberries

Gelato:

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas

Juice of 1/2 lemon

9 3-oz. paper cups

9 popsicle sticks



Make the blueberry sauce:

Mix the sugar and water in a small pan.  Heat until sugar is dissolved, then boil for 3 minutes or until the mixture is thickened, do not let it caramelized.  Cool slightly.  Puree the fresh blueberry in a food processor or a blender then press through a sieve over a bowl.  Stir in the syrup and chill well.

Make the gelato:

Heat the milk in a medium-sized pan, bring to boil continuously.  Take the pan off heat and pour the sugar and vanilla extract, stir until dissolved, cool slightly then chill well.

Put the lemon juice in a bowl, mash the bananas with fork into the bowl.  It is okay if the bananas pieces are a bit chunky.  Mix banana mixture with gelato base.  If using an ice cream machine, follow the manufacturer's instruction.  After the churning process is done while the gelato is still partly frozen, drop blueberry sauce by spoon into the gelato.  Mix it just enough to get ripple effects into the gelato.

Spoon and divide the mixture into the 3-oz. cups evenly, fill the cups until it is full.  Insert the popsicle sticks.  Freeze the gelato until firm.

*If desired, coat the gelato with melted chocolate.  I used bittersweet chocolate here, but you could use different types of chocolate as well.*



Source:  adapted from Making Ice Cream and Iced Desserts by Joanna Farrow and Sara Lewis