One of the many things that stood out from the BBC’s Summer Food Show and Gardeners World Live the other week was a fun little recipe from James Martin.

Instant Banana Ice Cream was part of a 3 course meal he prepared in front of an audience for one of his shows and it seemed fun enough to try at home.

Rapid icecream ingredients

My food mixer is only small, so I chopped 1 banana up into chunks and froze it over night. I then mixed it with a couple of tablespoons of this buttermilk thing and a few drops of vanilla extract. Whizzing it up into a puree was fun but loud and I don’t think my mixer’s gears liked it, it now makes a really nasty screaming noise when it goes round.

Into the blender

Having said that, it really does work, provided you make it a little thick and then add more buttermilk to get to a useful consistency.

I don’t think it needed the extra sugar, but the buttermilk was too acidic for my taste, perhaps it was too cultured for me. I might try swapping it for some really good natural yoghurt or add a bit of cream as well next time.

Rapid icecream and Rhubarb

I served it with some simply poached yorkshire rhubarb, which was very yummy. Definately going to repeat this one.