Banana Pancakes

What, more pancakes? Look, if you have people over for brunch as often as I do, you have to have more than one pancake trick up your sleeve. This is my basic pancake recipe (the sour cream ones I posted last week are my basic recipe now) with an over-ripe-spotty-but-not-solid-black-yet banana thinly sliced and added to the uncooked side just before flipping them over. If you have a little butter in the pan, the bananas caramelize ever so slightly and get sweetly fragrant. Way better than just slicing some bananas on top of the pancakes after they're finished.

I learned this method of banana pancake making from one of my former roommates, Yves, who also happens to be the person who schooled me on plantain frying. Go figure. I wonder if I still have a photo of her huevos rancheros... they were to die for!

Banana Pancakes

serves 2-3 people, makes roughly six 8" pancakes.

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tbsp melted butter

1 or 2 overripe bananas thinly sliced

In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, sour cream, and melted butter. Stir gently into the dry ingredients, leaving the batter a little lumpy. Add more milk if needed to make the batter pourable.

Use a 1/3 cup or 1/2 cup measuring cup to pour batter onto a hot, lightly buttered griddle. When the large bubbles start to show up, lay a few slices of banana on the batter before flipping the pancakes over. If you put the bananas down too soon the batter underneath never cooks.

Banana Rum Tart with Chocolate Mousse

I had some bananas getting spotty on my kitchen shelf, and wanted to come up with some way of using them other than my standard banana bread. This is what I came up with, after reading a dozen recipes for banana custard and banana cream and a Cuban banana rum cake. I served it after red beans and rice with spicy chicken, and I will likely post that recipe very soon.

This recipe makes enough banana custard to fill one full size pie shell and three 4-inch mini tart shells.

Banana Rum Tart & Chocolate Mousse

Tart Shell
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
3 to 4 tbsp ice water

Whisk together the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter and mix with a pastry cutter until it looks like coarse crumbs. Add 3 tbsp ice water and mix until the dough is smooth. If too dry, mix in another tablespoon of ice water.
Roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper to a circle slightly larger than your pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes before removing the parchment and fitting it into the pie pan. Bake for 8 minutes at 425º before filling with banana custard.

Banana Rum Custard Pie Filling
3 overripe bananas
3 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 tbsp dark rum
1 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar

In a large bowl, mix the bananas, eggs, and brown sugar on medium until smooth and bubbly. Add the cream and rum, mix in. Pour into the partially baked crust and bake in a 350º oven for about 20 minutes, or until the custard is set.

Chocolate Mousse
1/2 cup milk
6 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 cup chocolate chips or 4 bars of baking chocolate
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring often. Set aside. In another sauce pan, combine the other half of the milk and sugar and heat until steaming and the sugar is dissolved. Put the egg yolk in a small bowl and gradually whisk in the hot milk. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly for about two minutes until it has thickened slightly.
Remove the pan from heat. Add the chocolate and salt and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the butter. Pour the mousse into a plastic bowl and freeze for 15-30 minutes, then whip with a hand mixer on high speed until the mousse is thick and fluffy.
Place a heaping tablespoon of mousse on each serving of banana rum tart. Top with an anise star, or chocolate shavings.