Banana-Blueberry Gelato

Photo: Eliza Adam

Ingredients

Blueberry Sauce:

6 tablespoons granulated sugar

3 tablespoons water

1 1/2 cups fresh bluberries

Gelato:

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas

1/2 Juice of lemon

9 3s oz. paper cups

9 popsicle sticks

Preparation

Make the blueberry sauce:

Mix the sugar and water in a small pan. Heat until sugar is dissolved, then boil for 3 minutes or until the mixture is thickened, do not let it caramelized. Cool slightly. Puree the fresh blueberry in a food processor or a blender then press through a sieve over a bowl. Stir in the syrup and chill well.

Make the gelato:

Heat the milk in a medium-sized pan, bring to boil continuously. Take the pan off heat and pour the sugar and vanilla extract, stir until dissolved, cool slightly then chill well.

Put the lemon juice in a bowl, mash the bananas with fork into the bowl. It is okay if the bananas pieces are a bit chunky. Mix banana mixture with gelato base. If using an i ce cream machine, follow the manufacturer's instruction. After the churning process is done while the gelato is still partly frozen, drop blueberry sauce by spoon into the gelato. Mix it just enough to get ripple effects into the gelato.

Spoon and divide the mixture into the 3-oz. cups evenly, fill the cups until it is full. Insert the popsicle sticks. Freeze the gelato until firm.

If desired, coat the gelato with melted chocolate. I used bittersweet chocolate here, but you could use different types of chocolate as well.*