Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I have a delicious dessert I first learned how to cook a few weeks before my15th birthday (just a baby!) in France. La voila, Banana Rum Shuttles! Of course, over there they called them "tartes bananes" and they didn't have the little arrow-head end that looks like a loom shuttle. But the recipe I found that was the closest was this "shuttle" version and I thought it was really pretty so... I guess my tartes bananes sont "shuttles" now!
So, you'll need:
3 bananas
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 tbs rum (or more, depending on what kind of day you've had)
puff pastry, frozen or home made (I've tried to make it many times... I just can't. So, I resolved to stop wasting time on the impossible and buy the frozen stuff.)
1 egg white for glaze
Cut the bananas length-wise. No reason for this except it's easier to dip them in the rum.
You can't see the rum, but it's there. Really.
Mix the sugar, cloves, cinnamon. Roll the rum bananas in the sugar. Lick fingers after ever piece.
You should end up with bananas coated with sugar and spices and rum. Taste test a few to make sure everything is going well at this point.
Defrosted pastry. Looks bad. Will taste good.
Put the banana mix on the puff pastry. Sample a few more pieces that fall off the side. Lick fingers again.
Seal the sides with the fork, cut the ends at an angle and seal.
Slice the top for vents. Chill in the fridge for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425F. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Take them out, brsh with egg whites, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes.
I served these on plates I picked up in Poland when I attended the Warsaw School of Economics after I graduated from college. It was a little odd to serve something from my years in France on plates I bought ten years later during a sojourn in a completely different country. Then my five year old picked one up and proclaimed it "delicioso" and just like his abuelita's empanadas. I had to smile at the intersection (collision?) of all these cultures in a small Oregon town.
Wishing you joy in the journey, wherever you are and wherever you're going! Until next time...
Around here those collisions or intersections are generally dubbed the "Bermuda Triangle" because they have life-altering significance! I will not elaborate because I'm too excited to make these!!!! I wonder how they'd be fried in fresh oil, Virginia? I couldn't have the slits in the top, but it works for fruit pies.... Of course I do not need the extra calories, but there's something about fried delicate pastry that makes it so stinkin' good!!!!! And I love rum and banana together. I may try these tomorrow when peeps come by to remind me all work and no play makes a DULL GRAMMY. :)
ReplyDeleteHAHAH! But as we sail blithely into those little intersections we have dreams of a white-san beach destination, rather than meeting Amelia Earhart, right?
DeleteI don't know how puff pastry would be in oil... but I'm sure it would be delicious because really... frying makes everything better! I'm just a weanie when it comes to frying so I was excited to see a baked version. (The original was also baked, but the closest recipes I'd seen were fried. Empanadas are fried.)
Yes... rum and bananas.... rum and everything! I thought I didn't have any, but I found a little bit in a jar in the back of the cabinet. I should clean out my cabinets more often!
Oh, this looks divine, both the shuttles and the plates. I'm allergic to bananas but this makes me want to take my life in my hands! Banana Rum Shuttles a la benadryl?
ReplyDeleteHoping your Advent has been blessed so far! Looks like it from here.
Could you substitute the bananas for something else? Or maybe substitute the rum for kirsch and change the filling to cherries?
DeleteOur Advent started with a bang! And then a funeral. And life goes on. As it always will.
Blessings on your Advent!
Rum? Yuck! LOL Guess it would lose something in the translation if I tried this recipe without. Love the plates. They are gorgeous and so different from what you can get here.
ReplyDeleteKav, I wonder if you could do this with chocolate syrup instead of rum? Why not? Chocolate and bananas are to die for. I love frozen bananas dipped in chocolate and crushed nuts. Wait. We could add NUTS TO THIS!!!!!!
DeleteOr just roll in melted butter instead of rum. :)
DeleteThey say the heat bakes out the alcohol and leaves the flavor, but that doesn't help, does it? LOL. My husband is a non-drinker so he gives the side-eye to anything with rum or kirsch or Grand Marnier, etc. Sure puts a wrench in my French cooking! he doesn't buy that whole "the alcohol gets cooked out" bit.
DeleteAnyway, I made him a batch without the rum. I did just what Missy says, rolled them in melted butter, and then the cinnamon/clove/ mixture. I tasted one of the "virgin" shuttles and they did taste different to me, missing a certain je ne sais quoi (hahaha) but still delicious.
And yes, the plate is so pretty. That one is from a southern region near Krakow that I visited for a few weeks. The dishes from the north, where I lived, are the traditional white with blue hand painted flowers. If you Google Polish pottery, that's what usually comes up.
DeleteI have an as yet unpublished book about an American Polish potter. Think Sarah Plain and Tall meets My Three Sons, only these boys are devil spawn.... :) I'm cleaning it up this winter to be either indie or an editor's treasure, but it's a marriage of convenience story and it's a contemp so I'm stretching believability boundaries! Oops.
DeleteThere I go again! :)
Ooooh, fascinating! I know nothing about Polish pottery except what it looks like and some general regions and styles. Or.. wait.. is the potter person Polish? Or is the potter person making Polish pottery pieces? I assumed the second one. That would be some interesting research.
DeleteMy college roommate's husband is an artist who teaches anatomy and pottery at the college level. (No, not together. Separately. Although, together would be interesting, too!) I love the original pieces he gives us when we meet up at the beach or for Christmas.
And I'm a sucker for the marriage of convenience stories. I think every marriage that lasts more than five years goes through that marriage of convenience/falling in love cycle, hahaha.
I don't drink, but the rum would certainly add something to these bananas..yummo!
DeleteA friend said someone could actually use rum flavoring, from one of those artificial flavoring bottles. That would solve that problem!
DeleteOn the floor with panting desire to eat these. Yum. And I can use the premade pastry dough-awesome!
ReplyDeleteI love the premade dough. I stopped trying to make puff pastry and phyllo dough about twenty years ago... when my Greek restaurant owning boss laughed and showed me that she always used the frozen dough! :) I figured if it was good enough for Rula, it was good enough for Ruthy!
DeleteI can taste the difference. It tastes... stale? Something. Maybe the preservatives. But yo know what? At this point, my options are spend 12 hours with that folding/chilling process and it doesn't fluff.... or just buy the stuff and have it taste a little off. Since I haven't found a time machine on Amazon yet, I opt for the latter.
DeleteYUM! I love baked bananas. They're so, so sweet and delicious. Bananas foster is one of my favorite desserts.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing, Virginia!
I've never made bananas foster but a friend just commented the same thing when I described this recipe. I may have to try it!
DeleteTina, don't they look amazing?? I bet we could do these with other fruits, too. It's like a baked pie/pastry so why not, right?
ReplyDeleteI think we should all experiment. It could be puff pastry week. Think of all the goodness! We could discover a whole new dessert the world has never known and win the Nobel Prize for culinary contributions. Like penicillin, generations will refer to it as "the felicitous accident that changed the world".
DeleteOr maybe not. :) But it would be fun.
I've got a party here next weekend. My house is a mess. It will still be a mess until Saturday. Party is Sunday. But you know what might be good is fruit and cheesecake stuffed puff pastry shells?????
DeleteI love using that frozen puff pastry! You're right, Virginia - the homemade tastes better, but when it's a time crunch (and when ISN'T it a time crunch?), the frozen makes the dish possible.
ReplyDeleteI will have to try these. I know my family will love them, rum and all!
I be they will! And so, so easy.
Delete