No-Churn Banana Pudding Ice Cream

What's more delicious than vanilla pudding with banana slices and vanilla wafers? Ice cream with bananas and vanilla wafers! A few simple ingredients make a simple and deliciously rich desert. I roast my bananas to bring out the flavor and sweetness, but you can make this without roasting them too. Just be sure that your bananas are very ripe.

Ingredients:

2 Cups Whipping Cream

14 oz Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

2 Ripe Bananas

About 10 Vanilla Wafer Cookies

Pinch of Salt (1/4 tsp)

Materials:

Large bowl, hand mixer, scraper, measuring cup/spoons, toaster oven or regular oven, fork, container for freezing.

Poke your bananas a few times with a fork and place them on a tray in a pre-heated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 20 minutes. You want them to be black, but not burnt. You can skip this step and just use very ripe bananas, but roasted is best. You should also place your large bowl in the fridge at this time. A cold bowl helps your cream whip faster.

Once out of the oven, allow to bananas to cool, then peel. Place bananas in small bowl and mash with fork. You will see a surprising amount of water come out when you peel them, don't include the excess water. The roasting not only enhances sweetness and deepens flavor, but it also helps reduce some of the water content so the banana pieces don't get as icy in the freezer. Place your wafers in a plastic bag and crush with measuring cup. You don't want the pieces too small like crumbs, keep them a small bite size and you should have about a half a cup when done.

Whip the cream till just stiff peaks using your hand mixer. You could also whisk by hand but it will take much longer. Once stiff peaks form, slowly pour in sweetened condensed milk while continuing to whip until combined. Don't over whip.

Fold in vanilla, salt, and bananas with rubber scrapper. Then fold in cookies. Folding gently reduces the loss of air in your whipped cream.

Pour into freezer-safe containers. This fit perfectly into two 4-cup airtight containers for me. Wait at least eight hours before serving. (This is the hardest part, but since there's no eggs, you can lick the spoon!)

Serve! You can also top with more sliced bananas and cookie crumbs!