Plantain Icecream

If you grew up eating plantain, you’ll know there’s something so distinctive about its flavour. It’s sweet, but not in the same way as a banana. It has this slightly earthy, almost savoury quality underneath its natural sweetness, which is exactly what makes it so special. That unique flavour is also what makes plantain such a good base for ice cream.

I grew up eating plantain, but almost always as part of a savoury meal. Fried plantain alongside rice, stew, chicken or whatever else was on the table was completely normal to me. There’s something about that combination of sweet, caramelised plantain against salty and savoury food that just works. So although turning plantain into ice cream might sound unusual at first, when you think about the flavours that are already there, it actually makes so much sense.

If you’ve never had plantain before, it’s a fruit from the same family as bananas, but the two aren’t quite interchangeable. Plantains tend to be larger, starchier and firmer than the bananas you would normally eat raw. They’re also generally cooked before eating. As they ripen, the skin changes from green to yellow and eventually becomes heavily spotted or almost completely black. The riper the plantain becomes, the sweeter and softer the flesh inside will be.

For this ice cream, you want ripe plantain because we’re leaning into that natural sweetness. When cooked, the sugars in the plantain begin to caramelise and the flavour becomes deeper, richer and almost toffee-like. But unlike banana, there’s still that characteristic earthy flavour running through it. I really didn’t want to lose that because, for me, that’s the whole point of making a plantain ice cream rather than simply making banana ice cream.

The plantain is caramelised before being incorporated into the ice cream base. This is an important step because rather than simply adding raw plantain and relying on the custard to do all the work, cooking it first concentrates the flavour. The outside becomes golden and caramelised, the inside becomes incredibly soft, and the natural sugars develop into something much richer. Once blended, you’re left with a smooth plantain purée that distributes beautifully throughout the ice cream.

The ice cream itself starts with a classic custard base made with double cream, whole milk, egg yolks and sugar. I love using a custard base here because plantain has quite a bold flavour and it needs something rich enough to carry it without overpowering it. The egg yolks add richness while also giving the finished ice cream that luxurious, creamy texture.

This is also a churned ice cream, which I think is really important for this particular recipe. There are plenty of no-churn ice creams that I love, but for plantain ice cream, churning gives you the best texture. Plantain is naturally quite starchy and dense, so simply folding it into a cream-based mixture can make the finished ice cream feel heavier. Churning helps incorporate air into the mixture as it freezes, creating a texture that is much smoother, lighter and creamier.

You still get all that richness from the custard and plantain, but it doesn’t feel overly dense when you eat it. Instead, it scoops beautifully and melts slowly on the tongue, which gives you time to actually taste the different layers of flavour.

And there really are layers.

Your first impression is creamy and sweet, followed by that familiar caramelised plantain flavour, and then you get the slightly earthy notes underneath. It’s difficult to compare plantain directly to another fruit because it really does have its own character. There are hints of banana, of course, but plantain is starchier, deeper and less overtly fruity. Once caramelised, there’s almost a brown sugar quality to it that works incredibly well with dairy.

That balance is probably my favourite thing about this recipe.

Because I’m so used to eating plantain in savoury dishes, I wanted this ice cream to retain some of that complexity rather than turning it into something overwhelmingly sugary. It’s definitely a dessert, but it still tastes unmistakably like plantain. The sweetness enhances its natural flavour instead of covering it up.

I also think that’s what makes plantain such an exciting ingredient to use in desserts. Depending on where you grew up, you might associate it almost entirely with savoury food, but it has so much more range than that. When you take a really ripe plantain and fry or roast it, you’re already encouraging its sugars to caramelise. Turning those flavours into a dessert is really just taking something we already love about plantain and pushing it slightly further.

For me, there’s also something nostalgic about it. Plantain is one of those ingredients that immediately reminds me of the food I grew up eating, so creating a dessert around it feels familiar and new at the same time. The flavour is instantly recognisable, but eating it cold, creamy and churned completely changes the experience.

It’s exactly the kind of recipe I love: taking an ingredient that people think they know and showing another side of it.

And if you already love plantain, I think you’ll understand this ice cream immediately. That earthy sweetness is still there, only now it’s surrounded by a rich, silky custard. If you’ve never tried plantain before, this is definitely a different introduction to the ingredient, but it showcases exactly why its flavour is so unique.

The final result is creamy, deeply flavoured and sweet without losing the character of the plantain itself. You get the caramelised notes from cooking the fruit, the richness of the custard and that unmistakable earthy plantain flavour coming through at the end.

Growing up, I would never have thought of plantain as an ice cream flavour. It belonged next to savoury food on my plate. But that’s exactly why I love this recipe so much. It takes something incredibly familiar to me and presents it in a completely different way.

Sweet plantain and savoury food have always been about balance, and this ice cream plays with that same idea from another direction. It celebrates the natural sweetness of ripe plantain while keeping the deeper, earthier flavour that makes it unique.

And once it’s churned into a smooth, creamy ice cream, it just works.