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This recipe comes with a disclaimer: flambé can be dangerous.
Of course, you CAN mix the sauce in the first part and not light it on fire, but let’s face it: that really isn’t nearly as much fun, and it won’t have the same delicious browned butter, caramel-y, toasted rum soaked banana-y flavor. So leave out the fire if you must, but know that I am judging you. Oh, and my bread tastes better than yours. (I bet you order your steaks well-done to make sure they are tough, bland, and tasteless up to the “safe” temperature, and avoid raw cheeses, too. Judging you.)
I feel it’s worth mentioning that I pulled off this entire recipe only using one hand (including typing and photography), since I sliced the tip of my thumb off yesterday in a mandolin-related incident (julienned vegetables for stir-fry be damned!), meaning that I can pull this off with one hand tied behind my back.
Now that I’ve harassed you for looking at this post, and bullied you into potentially setting your kitchen on fire, here we go:
The first part of the recipe is an altered version of the classic Bananas Foster from Brennan’s Restaurant. If you half the butter, you get the recipe I use for Bananas Foster when I’m cooking it on its own as a dessert served over ice cream.
BANANAS FOSTER BREAD
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup dark rum
- 3 tablespoons Amaretto
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups loosely mashed ripe banana
- 1 tablespoon powdered sugar
Preheat oven to 350°
In a sauté pan with the range set on medium low, combine the butter, sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Stir until the butter and sugar have melted and blended together. Add the bananas and the amaretto, and cook until the bananas begin to brown. Add the rum, and using a lighter (don’t be an idiot — make sure it’s the long kind used to light a grill), light the mixture on fire. Oooooh and ahhhh (but from a safe distance), and wait for the flames to die down. Once extinguished, give the pan a stir, remove from the heat, and set aside. Take out a spoon and give it a taste. Debate not making the bread at all and simply sustaining life from the deliciousness in the bowl in front of you for the rest of the week… I had a serious case of impatient while making this bread, so I let it cool for about ten minutes in the pan before I put it in a bowl and stuck it in the freezer while I prepared the rest of the batter. In retrospect, this made the sugar crystallize and my bread a bit lumpy, so I will exercise some self-control and let it cool on the counter next time.
Combine the flour, salt, and baking soda with a whisk in a bowl, then add the eggs and mix. It will be very lumpy, but we’re okay with that.
Remove 3 tablespoons of liquid from the banana mixture and set aside. Fold the remaining banana mixture into the flour and egg mixture. Make as few movements as possible here! Over-mixed banana bread is dry, heavy, and booooooring. You want the mixture to be lumpy, with maybe a few small dry spots.
Pour into a greased 8-inch loaf pan, and bake for 50- 60 minutes.
While baking, add 1 tablespoons of powdered sugar to the liquid you set aside, and stir until smooth. Pour on the bread after it has cooled.
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