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Frozen Banana Custard
To the regular custard for freezing (see Introductory Recipes) add the crushed pulp of four or five bananas and pinch of salt. Freeze.
A one-line recipe that assumes you already have the book's boiled custard base and a crank freezer. The work is in filling those two gaps.
- The custard baseA "regular custard for freezing" of this period would typically be a stirred custard along the lines of a quart of milk or part cream, several eggs or yolks, and sugar; the book's own Introductory Recipes govern, and no proportions are given here. Cook it to 170-180F, strain, then chill thoroughly before the bananas go in.
- Freeze means churn"Freeze" here means an ice-and-salt hand freezer: crushed ice packed around the can with rock salt, commonly around three parts ice to one part salt by volume, though period guidance varies. A modern electric machine does the same job; the point is constant agitation while it chills, not simply putting the bowl in the freezer.
- Add the banana cold and lateMash the fruit into the already-chilled custard just before churning. Banana pulp warms and browns quickly, and heating it into a hot custard flattens the flavour into something closer to cooked pudding.
- Ripeness is the whole flavourUse bananas heavily freckled with brown, soft enough to mash with a fork. Underripe fruit tastes starchy and chalky once frozen, and the recipe adds no sugar beyond the custard base to hide it.
- BrowningA tablespoon of lemon juice keeps the pulp from greying and sharpens the sweetness. The original does not call for it.
- Why the salt mattersThe pinch of salt is not seasoning by accident. Frozen mixtures read as blander than they taste at room temperature, and the salt is what keeps the banana from tasting muted.
- Texture after freezingThe added fruit purée dilutes the fat of the custard, which can make this set harder and icier than a plain custard ice. Let it stand 10-15 minutes at room temperature before serving, or churn it slightly softer and ripen it only an hour or two.
- YieldAssuming a quart of custard base, four or five bananas would give roughly 1.5 quarts, serving six to eight; the recipe itself specifies no base quantity.
Bananas moved from luxury curiosity to everyday grocery in the United States between the 1870s and the turn of the century, as fast steamers with ventilated holds brought Caribbean and Central American fruit north in quantity. Cookbooks of the period responded by working the new fruit into every established form: fritters, salads, puddings and, inevitably, ice cream. The extreme brevity of the instruction is itself a period marker orm custcustard base by heart and to own a freezer, so the only novelty worth spelling out is the fruit.