Bananas Foster
Bananas Foster is a warm dessert of caramelized brown sugar, butter, cinnamon, and banana liqueur, cooked around fresh bananas and finished with a tableside rum flambé. It was created at Brennan's Restaurant in New Orleans in 1951 by chef Paul Blangé and named after Richard Foster, a close friend of owner Owen Brennan and chairman of the New Orleans Crime Commission. It takes eight minutes to make and it will be the most dramatic thing you have ever done in a kitchen.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 cup banana liqueur
- 4 bananas peeled, halved lengthwise then crosswise
- 1/4 cup dark rum
- 4 scoops vanilla ice cream
Instructions
- Melt butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a heavy skillet over low heat, stirring until the sugar fully dissolves and the mixture bubbles gently, 3 to 4 minutes
- Stir in banana liqueur, then add bananas cut side down and cook 1 to 2 minutes per side, spooning the sauce over the top as they cook
- Remove from heat, pour in the rum, let it warm 30 seconds, then tilt toward flame or use a long match to ignite. Flames will subside in 30 to 45 seconds
- Plate bananas over ice cream and spoon the sauce generously over the top. Serve immediately
Video
Notes
- Use Myers's dark rum. Light rum will technically work but the sauce will be noticeably thinner in flavor. The dark rum is what gives Bananas Foster its depth and the original Brennan's recipe has always called for it.
- Your bananas need to be ripe but still firm. Overripe bananas will collapse in the pan and turn to mush before the sauce has time to develop. You want them to hold their shape through the flambé and still have some structure when they hit the ice cream.
- Never pour rum directly from the bottle near an open flame and always remove the pan from a gas burner before adding the rum. The flame rises fast and dramatically. That is the point, but it needs to be on your terms, not the stove's.