I like to some up with my own recipes. That is one of the joys of cooking, is that you can be experimental. Most of the time my experiments turn out to be pretty good. This one… not so much. I originally started this recipe as my entry for the newest Brownie Babe of the Month at Once Upon a Tart. I know that baking is not the same as cooking. I would always joke with my friends that baking is a science and cooking is an art. You can only experiment so much when it comes to baking. And I went too far.

Once I realized that the brownies were not going to actually firm into brownies (about 40 minutes into cooking them), I decided to change my direction. I figured that if they were liquid enough I could turn this into a version of the Julia Child and Jacques Torres Baked Chocolate Soup recipe and then submit it to the Second Annual Julia Child Birthday Event at Champaign Taste. So I took the half-firm-wish-they-were-brownies out of the oven and started caramelizing some bananas. I have never caramelized anything before, well nothing intentionally. So I tossed some chopped banana, dark rum, cinnamon, sugar and butter in a skillet and ran with it. The end result: puffed, mushy butter ‘fried’ bananas. At least they tasted good.

Well I plated the bananas and then added the semi-firm sorta-brownies. It was not the Child/Torres Baked Chocolate Soup, it was Buttery Bananas and Quasi-Brownies. So learn from my mistakes, or make some on purpose. The end result is supper tasty, but sugar overkill. Enjoy!

Buttery Bananas and Quasi-Brownies

The Ingredients - Buttery Bananas

• 2 bananas, ripe but firm, cut lengthwise then crosswise in 1/2 inch chunks
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons dark rum
• 1 cup granulated sugar

The Ingredients - Quasi-Brownies

• 1 cup butter
• 80g or 2 1/3 oz 60% bittersweet chocolate, chopped
• 60g or 2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup Special Dark cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

The Steps - Quasi-Brownies

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 inch square pan or line it with parchment paper.
2. Place the butter and bittersweet and unsweetened chocolate into a bowl on top of a pot of water or in the top part of a double broiler. Stir until melted.
3. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract, sugar, cocoa powder and then eggs.
4. Finally stir in the flour, salt and baking powder. Transfer to baking pan.
5. Cook in the preheated oven until your chosen consistency. After 35 - 40 minutes, it should still be fairly soft but the edges will harden greatly after sitting. Inside will remain soft and mushy.

The Steps - Buttery Bananas

1. Add all ingredients to a skillet.
2. Cook until butter has melted and starts the mixture starts to boil.
3. Stir until all bananas are coated and begin to puff up.
4. Remove from heat once bananas begin to fall apart while stirring.

Technorati tags: brownies, Julia Child, baking, recipes, bananas

This entry was posted on Monday, August 13th, 2007 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Desserts and Sweets, Fruit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.