Bananas Flambees

Four ingredients and a match. Bananas Flambées is the kind of dessert that looks like it came from a restaurant kitchen but requires less effort than most baked goods. The secret, as the recipe states directly, is temperature. Everything must be warm for the rum to flame properly. Cold rum poured from a cold spoon over lukewarm bananas will not ignite. That’s the physics of the flambe.

The bananas go into the oven first, dotted with butter and topped with sugar, baking uncovered for 35 minutes until caramelized and tender. The sugar melts into a sauce that pools in the bottom of the dish. Then the dish moves to the stovetop.

Rum goes into a long-handled spoon that’s been warmed in boiling water. You light it with a match while the flame is still going and pour it over the bananas, ladling the flaming rum up and over continuously until the alcohol burns off and the flame dies naturally.

This is a dinner party dessert that costs almost nothing.

Chef Tips

• Warm the spoon in boiling water immediately before adding the rum. The warmer the spoon and rum, the more reliably the flame catches.
• Ladle the flaming sauce continuously from the dish up over the bananas while it burns. This is what gives them that rum-caramel glaze.
• Keep the dish on the stove during flambeing, not on a table surface. More control, safer angle for ladling.

Variations

• Serve over vanilla ice cream so the heat of the sauce melts the edges slightly.
• Brandy or dark rum both work. Dark rum gives a deeper, more molasses-forward flavor.
• A pinch of cinnamon sprinkled over at the end adds a warm finish.