banana paleta

Mark Bittman's recipe:

* 2 bananas

* 1 cup milk

* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

* 1/4 cup sugar

Yield 4-6 popsicles. 

I think I got that right. Apologies if I'm wrong. Hang on.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Back.

Too much milk, not enough banana. 

My experience is organic bananas generally are more flavorful than conventional bananas, but not always. Blended four organic bananas with 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 cup sugar and one teaspoon vanilla. Insufficient volume. Blended two more bananas. Still insufficient volume. Blended one more banana. Still insufficient volume. Come on! Blended one more banana. Still a bit short. Tasted. Too flat. Increased vanilla to two teaspoons. 

My recipe:

8 medium size bananas

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

yield: 8 popsicles. 

Conclusion. These are intensely bananafied. They're more banana-y than the frozen bananas on sticks that you can have on the beaches in Mexico, which are very banana-y indeed considering they are straight up bananas, or rather curved up bananas wot bin frooz.

Conclusion: One-dimensional. Bananas, even intensified bananas are a little bit boring. They need help.  Consider cinnamon, roasted pecans, possibly chunks of vanilla wafers (banana pie --childhood favorite), pistachios, a touch of rum if that would work (alcohol tends to prevent freezing), brown sugar instead of white sugar, peanut butter, Graham cracker chunks, coffee, chocolate, coconut, make a proper banana custard or pudding something with egg and then freeze that. Cayenne? Chipotle? Habanero? NO! Not that. Ai yi yi. I'm suddenly taken with the idea of banana with mashed refried beans shot through with chile but that doesn't sound very good frozen and yet I cannot shake the idea from my mind.