Banana Ice Cream with ‘Dulce de Leche’

Introduction

I had never heard of this flavour until I asked Victoria which flavour she missed most from Argentina. The first answer was ‘Triple dulce de leche Havanna’, tricky to reproduce as you can imagine from the title! And probably a registered trademark 😋

The second was banana split, which from what I understood of the description is a banana cream swirled with dulce de leche. It seemed doable to me, and here dulce de leche can even be found at the supermarket.

‘Dulce de Leche’, pronounced dulse de lece and translated as milk jam, is caramelized condensed milk, the cornerstone of Latin American pastry although little known in Europe.

That same evening the topic came up while we were watching the Argentina-Cape Verde World Cup match, and another friend said that yes, his favourite flavour was precisely banana with dulce de leche. So, off we go! Let's try a flavour imported from the other side of the world.

Never in my life had I tried a banana ice cream at a gelato shop, so I didn't know what to expect. Drawing as always on Corvitto's magical book ‘Ice Cream Without Secrets’, I researched the steps to make a good banana ice cream, and then swirl it with dulce de leche.

Corvitto recommends keeping the following data in mind:

• For 1kg of ice cream, 350g of banana is enough
• Banana oxidizes and darkens very quickly, ruining the colour of the ice cream. So it must be processed and added at the last moment
• For all fruit creams, he recommends keeping the fat part low, around 4%, to enhance the fruity flavour and not cover it

So here is the recipe we created!

Ingredients

• Proportions for ~1kg

Balancing

iCalc chart

Preparation

Tested with 800g using the machine Cuisinart ICE-100:

1. Preparation:
   1. Combine all the mixed powders
   2. Mix milk and cream
   3. Slowly, pour the powders into the milk with the cream. I did it cold, without pasteurization, mainly to save time since no ingredient needs high temperatures
   4. Once ready and the powders are completely dissolved, you can let it mature in the fridge. I considered this optional, to save time and move straight to churning
   5. At the last moment before churning the ice cream, chop and add the bananas
   6. With the immersion blender process the whole mix to blend the ingredients

      

2. Churning:
   1. 45 minutes of churning (Cuisinart ICE100)
   2. 2 minutes before the end, drizzle in the dulce de leche warmed in the microwave with a spoon, to swirl the ice cream
   3. Extracted at -6.5ºC
3. Minimum time in the freezer to reach temperature:
   1. 6h

Final notes and tasting test

• Serving temperature: -13ºC
• Meltability: Slow, creamy
• Crystallization: excellent fine cream

Tasting test

• Sweetness: Despite the dulce de leche, it wasn't particularly sweet and very fresh
• Texture: Creamy with the swirled part very interesting
• Aroma: Fresh, banana. Well done! The predominant notes were the strong banana aroma, and the aftertaste and memory of milk that dulce de leche leaves as a background.

Conclusions

Victoria immediately lost her head, and I immediately lost the ice cream from the freezer! It was a success. I had no benchmarks, but Victoria said it seemed like one of the best she has tried.

The banana gave a unique and full texture to the ice cream, with a creaminess I've rarely achieved.

I'm not strong with fruit sorbets, but it seems this first fruit-cream ice cream came out rather well!

For next time I took a few notes:

• Try flavouring with half a spoon of vanilla extract. I think it can enhance the dulce de leche and give freshness to the flavour
• The supermarket dulce de leche might not be the best choice. It should be tried with a quality one
• Maybe it's better to swirl with the machine off, to give the dulce de leche time to cool and set before the machine mixes it with the cream
• The dulce de leche, like it or not, mixes with the cream and raises the PAC. So all temperatures should be considered a fraction of a degree lower

What did you think? I'm especially curious about our Argentine friends: is it faithful to the flavours you find at home, or is there still work to do?