One of my friends commented that I have just been Betty Crocker-like as of late.  True, I am being more domestic than usual, but summer inspires me to be more creative in the kitchen.  And what’s more fun than creating homemade ice cream?  Last summer the kids and I started making ice cream about every 2 weeks.  We bought this book as a starting point and it has some really good recipes:

However last week, I was jonesing for some banana pudding ice cream.  See, there used to be an ice cream place called Hank’s in Atlanta across from the zoo and my family was addicted to the banana pudding ice cream.   When Hank’s moved we were devastated.  ” Ahh,” I thought last week, “I can just make my own!”  But there wasn’t a recipe in the book.

A sidebar moment to wax poetic about my iPhone:  Despite the love I have for my iPhone, generally I don’t use the web feature too much, but as I headed to the grocery store with the recipe book in my hand, that’s when I got the urge to make the banana pudding ice cream.  ”Shoot,” I thought, “I have to go back home and see if I can find a recipe online.”  ”Wait a minute,” I said to myself, “I can just look it up on my iPhone!”  So that’s what I did–googled “banana pudding ice cream” in the middle of the grocery store.  I found the recipe below and walked around the store iPhone in hand gathering the ingredients.   Big props for the iPhone!

Back to the banana pudding: So I found this great recipe on Joy The Baker.  She has this fantastic blog full of recipes, life musings and the most beautiful photos of food.   Looking at her photos of the banana pudding ice cream inspired me to try her recipe.  

A few my notes on the recipe: As she says in her blog, this recipe makes a lot of ice cream.  My ice cream maker holds 1 1/2 quarts and the recipe made 2 batches for me.  This was a problem because I only have 1 freezer bowl, therefore the 2nd batch didn’t freeze as well.   Next time I will 1/2 the recipe or better yet buy another freezer bowl.   My family had 14 (small) servings eaten over the course of 3 days.   Depending on your ice cream maker, you can either eat it right after mixing/freezing or put it in your home freezer for awhile.   Be careful though because if you leave it in the home freezer too long, the ice cream will be rock solid and very hard to scoop (that happened to me and we had to let it soften for quite a long time). 

And finally, I must say that oh my goodness THIS IS THE BEST ICE CREAM THAT I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE!   This is the kind of goodness that makes you mutter while you are eating it, close your eyes while it melts on your tongue and lick the bowl clean when you are through.   

If you have an ice cream maker, I suggest that you make this if you have any idea what’s good for you.

Gathering the ingredients

My daughter mashes the bananas

I do not have a photo of the finished product because I was too distracted EATING IT.  Trust me, it’s a beautiful thing.

Banana Pudding Ice Cream

     adapted from recipezaar

4 ounces Cool Whip (1/2 of an 8ounce container)

7 ounces sweetened condensed milk (1/2 of a 14 ounce can)

scant 1/2 gallon milk (reserve about 1 cup for you morning cereal)

1 (3 1/2 ounce) package Jello Banana Cream Instant Pudding

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 bananas (mashed)

1/2 box of vanilla wafers, crushed

In a bowl mix cool whip, condensed milk, vanilla, banana pudding and about 1/2 of the half gallon of milk.  Add chopped bananas and vanilla wafers.  

Pour mixture into an ice cream maker.  With machine on, pour in the rest of the half gallon of milk.  

Stir the mixture and begin freezing according the manufacturers instructions.  My ice cream machine took about 15 minutes to get to soft ice cream.  

Remove very soft ice cream and place in a freezer friendly plastic container.    Serve with slice bananas and vanilla wafers.