Bananas Foster

Recipe I picked up from a cooking class at the New Orleans School of Cooking, with some slight modification.

Ingredients

  • .25 lbs butter (about 1 stick)

  • .5 lbs dark brown sugar (about 1 cup)

  • 2 bananas, sliced

  • 2 oz. Grand Marnier

  • 4 oz. dark rum

  • ground cinnamon

  • Vanilla ice cream

Equipment

  • Skillet, preferably non-reactive material like stainless steel or enameled cast iron. A taller edge helps prevent bubbling over.

Instructions

  1. In skillet, melt butter and add brown sugar to form paste. Mix and caremlize over medium heat for about 5 minutes.

  2. Add in alcohol and bananas, maintain medium heat. If the heat is too low, the alcohol won’t burn off.

  3. Hit the surface of the food with some fire, and it should catch on fire. Throw some cinnamon over the fire for a burst of fire.

  4. Once the alcohol burns off, serve over ice cream.

Tips

If possible, do this outdoors. It’s a potential fire hazard.

If there’s no fire while cooking, it’s probably because the heat is too low. There’s a fine balance – raise the heat to burn off the alcohol, but if the heat is too high, it’ll bubble over and/or burn.