How To Make Baked Bananas
Cooking fruit is a wonderful thing! Perhaps being more specific here is better. Baking fruit is a wonderful thing! We have all sautéed apples to wonderful effect, but baking fruit really brings out the greatness in them – Baked Apples, Apple Roses, A Blueberry Pie. All delicious! One fruit that seems to go unbaked is the banana, but not anymore. Here comes the “How To Make Baked Bananas” post!
How To Make Baked Bananas – Take A Page From Pie
When I considered how to bake banana, it became clear that you can go in lots of directions. But the thing that kept popping into my head was banoffee pie. There is nothing not to like about banoffee pie and the flavors from this pie are easily transferred to a baked banana. So, why not!
How To Make Baked Bananas – Take A Page From Pie
All the flavours in a banoffee pie work together well. In a baked banana, all we are sacrificing is the work of making a pie crust which is fine by me. Here, we are just slicing open the banana and stuffing the goodies in. Dulce de leche could be seen as a hinderance because it takes so long to make. This can simply be purchased. Of course, this is also a lesson I learned long ago, always make a few extra cans of dulce de leche to have around when the need strikes! I always keep a can or 2 unopened in the fridge just in case.
How To Make Baked Bananas – Go Dark To Reduce Sweet
Dulce de leche is sweet and if there was one beef about the banoffee pie it would be that it can be cloyingly sweet. To help reduce this in the baked bananas, go with a dark chocolate. I like 70% cacao but an 85% or even 99% could be used with great effect.
How To Make Baked Bananas – No Crust – Crunchy Topping
Obviously, there is no crust, but it doesn’t mean that baked banana doesn’t need a crunchy topping. Here we turn to cookies. A nice wafer or buttery waffle cookie is great. A vanilla wafer would also work. Of course, don’t doubt how nice it would be to top this with a peanut butter cookie, too! It is a different direction, but there is always time (and usually big reward) for doing something different!
How To Make Baked Bananas – The Video and Recipe
Putting this all together makes for a very rich dessert that has a very flimsy healthy halo. The baking really brings out the banana flavor and that is truly nice with dulce del leche and dark chocolate. The baking is also easy. Just put the bananas in a baking pan and bake until the dulce de leche and chocolate are all melty and the banana is warmed through.
The ‘How To Make Baked Bananas’ video is below and full recipe follows.
- 4 ripe bananas
- 4 oz 70% cacao chocolate
- 1/3 cup of dulce de leche
- 6-8 butter waffle cookies or vanilla wafers
- Butter
- Preheat the oven to 350 F.
- With a chef’s knife, chop the chocolate finely.
- Crush the cookies.
- Using a paring knife, make a slice down the middle of the banana making sure to have cut all the way through. Open the banana to make sure the slice is fully opened.
- Gently warm the dulce de leche to make it spoonable. Spoon the dulce de leche into the bananas.
- Top with chopped chocolate.
- Top with crushed cookies gently pushing into the bananas.
- Top with small pieces of butter.
- Transfer to a baking pan and bake 20 minutes until heated through and the chocolate is all melted.
- You can also use peanut butter cookies as a topping.
Keep Eating! Keep Innovating!
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