Banana

Bananas vary greatly in size. The six bananas called for in this recipe should weigh a total of about four pounds. Once cut, bananas will discolor rapidly, so it’s best to slice them just before using.

If you use miniloaf pans, reduce the baking time to forty-five minutes. The recipe comes from Deanna Caceres Cahn, a former brand manager in the Martha Stewart Signature furniture group.

Roger Bible, a relative of the Rowe family, says “My favorite pie is Mildred’s banana cream, which she often brought along to family gatherings. I think it was the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my life.”

Here’s another recipe from Susan Simmons, a longtime baker at Mrs. Rowe’s Country Buffet who now works in the catering arm. Pouring the hot custard over the bananas infuses an incredible banana flavor into the creamy custard, making for an ultimate pie experience. When you prepare the egg yolks for the custard, remember to save the whites for the meringue!

Baking a batch of these ultra-moist cupcakes is a great way to use overripe bananas; keep a bunch in your freezer (unpeeled) and thaw when you’re ready to use. You can substitute walnuts for pecans, or leave the nuts out entirely. Caramel buttercream makes a satisfyingly sweet topping; cream-cheese frosting (page 303) and chocolate–sour cream frosting (page 311) are also good choices. Left unfrosted, the cupcakes can be enjoyed any time of day.

Roasting the fruit before folding it into the batter gives these cupcakes a pronounced banana flavor and keeps them very moist. Honey, often paired with bananas, is added to the frosting.

This gluten-free, dairy-free, no-cook tart relies on dates and pecans for a sturdy crust, maple syrup for sweetness, and bananas and coconut for tropical flavors. The cashew “cream” is made by grinding cashews with water and vanilla-bean seeds. Soaking the nuts overnight in water ensures a puddinglike texture once they are ground. All in all, it makes an enticing dessert, even for those without food allergies or sensitivities.

In the heyday of roadside restaurants, this tempting dessert was typically placed in the rotating glass case near the entrance, the better to entice hungry passersby. It was a good strategy: The pie’s velvety banana custard and billowy whipped-cream topping were—and remain—impossible to resist.

In one batch, find the flavors of two bakery classics: chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. Chopped walnuts and rolled oats add texture and more layers of taste. Use a ripe banana, which has more concentrated flavor, and is easier to mash, than an unripe one.

My nephew Bret is allergic to eggs, which always presents a challenge when it comes to dessert. The bigger challenge is that Bret loves banana pudding. When a seven-year-old boy who is very cute asks why everyone else is having banana pudding while he is not, Aunt Trisha has to think quickly, and because my regular recipe calls for four eggs, I have to get really creative. This banana pudding recipe came about on the spot, and Bret isn’t the only one who loves it!

We should rename this recipe Goldilocks Pudding! My mother’s notes say she made several attempts at my dad’s favorite dessert before coming up with this particular version—not too hard, not too soft. It has become a mainstay in my home, too. Garth prefers the pudding without the meringue, so I usually make two versions, one with and one without. Either way, it’s a homey, satisfying finish to any meal.

My sister hates bananas. Imagine all of the yummy recipes that eliminates for her! Nonetheless, when my niece Ashley makes this banana bread, it’s so good, even Beth will eat it. Maybe it has something to do with all that butter.

We always made this to take to Family Night suppers at church. Its official name was Congealed Fruit Salad, but it was known at our house as pink salad, because, well, it’s pink! Besides, anything with the word congealed in the title just sounds gross to me, and this is anything but.

Our good friends Dyan Solomon and Éric Girard own Olive + Gourmando, a perfect luncheonette on Saint Paul West in Montreal’s Old Port. Their little shop is what we expect the coffee shop in the afterlife to be like: they’re detail fanatics and it’s no contest the best place for lunch in the city. When they first opened, they were bakers, and the place was a bakery with a few seats. They still make bread, but mostly to use in delicious sandwiches. The front counter is displayed with brioches, croissants, brownies, and fruit pastries, and they’re all killer. We thought they were insane when they decided to open in Old Port a decade ago. It was a barren ghost town of bombed-out buildings, seedy bars, and grow-ops. There were no people, much less hotels and tourist shops selling maple-sugar products and “raccoon” Daniel Boone hats actually made from Chinese skunks. Like us, Éric and Dyan don’t take anything too seriously (Dyan can tell you many stories of Fred’s practical jokes when they used to work together: her showing up at 6:00 A.M. to a fake “dead man” at the bottom of the stairs; Fred putting a scraped lamb shank in his shirt, saying he may have hurt his hand. . . .) They’re Montreal classics and were kind enough to hand over one of their most beloved recipes.

Our homemade ice-cream sandwiches get raves when we serve them for lunch at the Workshop. We assemble them with cake instead of cookies to make them easier to eat. You can use any homemade or store-bought ice cream, but this caramel-banana–chocolate chip invention from pastry chef Marcel Desaulnier, who participated in the 1989 Workshop, is beyond delicious.

This cake is a less dense version of banana bread, so it can be served in many ways. At Tribeca Treats we typically serve it with Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing (page 150), but it also tastes great with Cream Cheese Icing (page 144), the “Sassy” Cinnamon variation on the Vanilla Icing (page 136), or even consider baking it in a loaf pan, cutting off a slice, and serving it alongside chocolate mousse or whipped cream and fresh berries. The key to this recipe is to use overripe bananas. Typically, the browner the peel, the sweeter the banana has become. Since bananas are usually on the greener side in the grocery store, plan on buying them several days in advance of when you’ll be making the cake. Keeping them in a closed paper bag at room temperature will speed the ripening process.

I make these skewers, the creation of my friend Johnny Earles, several times each summer. The bananas, especially, drive everyone wild.

The ideal bananas for cooking are just ripe, yellow with barely any brown spots. Double this recipe if you want a more substantial dessert or serve with vanilla ice cream.