Katherine’s Bananas Foster

Random House

Rumor has it that this is the secret weapon of debutantes in the Bayou. Just don’t tell your beau about all the storebought ice-cream (tres gauche, but darlin’, who’s got the time?) and testing the rum is not just acceptable--it’s required.

ingredients

Shortcake:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces (make sure it’s unsalted!)
1 cup pureed bananas

Sauce:

2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
7 1/2 tsp. dark rum
7 1/2 tsp. banana liqueur
5 bananas, peeled and cut into 3/4" rounds
2 quarts butter pecan or vanilla ice cream

directions

1
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter pieces until mixtures resembles coarse pebbles. Lightly stir in banana puree to make a damp dough. Turn mixture out onto a floured surface. Roll or pat to a 1“ thickness. Cut into 2 1/2-3” rounds with floured biscuit cutter (or rim of juice glass).
2
Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until golden brown, a/b 30 minutes. Combine cream and brown sugar in large saucepan. Cook over moderate heat, stir constantly until slightly thickened, a/b 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool 10 minutes. Stir rum, liqueur and sliced bananas into warm sauce. Split shortcakes and place on plates. Scoop ice cream onto bottom halves of shortcakes. Top with sauce and add the top halves of the shortcakes.