Brazilian Sweets: Bolo de Banana

Many of you probably know that I lived in Brazil some years ago. I grew to love the place, it's people and food. Every now and then I get a hankering for Brazilian food and make up a batch of black beans with pork, rice, and a side of sautéed kale just to take the edge off. A few weeks ago I was in such a mood and noticed that we had 5 or 6 bananas that were past their prime. Normally it would have been banana bread for them, but his time I decided to go Brazilian.

Bolo de Banana (banana cake) is sort like the Brazilian version of pineapple upside-down cake. You slice bananas in half (or thirds) longwise and lay them in caramelized sugar prepared in the bottom of a 13 x 9 pan. Then you pour the cake batter on top of that and bake away. After its baked and cooled, you flip it over and let them caramelized sugar soak into the cake. It's a humble cake that lives in even the poorest homes of Brazil.

Like most traditional cuisine, there are about 3 million slightly different versions of this recipe. This is the one that I used:

The dough:

1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder

The topping:

1 cup sugar
5 - 6 bananas

Bake for 30 - 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Put the sugar in the baking dish. Put it in the oven but watch it closely. Stir it as it starts to melt. It will turn into a beautiful liquid gold color. Don't let this liquid siren lull into complacency, and don't turn your back on it. This is delicious culinary napalm! CAREFULLY lay the sliced bananas in the sugar. I got carried away when I was putting the bananas in and got splattered real good. I had a blister the size of an almond on my thumb that I swear went to the bone.

After you get the bananas placed the batter goes on top. Its thicker than most cake batters. It's more like a sweet biscuit dough. Bake it until it turns a nice golden brown on top. You might want to put a cookie sheet under the pan to catch any sugar than boils over the edge.

If you try it, let me know how it goes. I'll be posting some more Brazilian recipes later.

The fall of Summer

It has already started. This summer, that arrived so late, is making it's exit. I've begun wearing sweaters and dreaming thanksgiving dinner. I hate to see summer go, but fall has it's charm and perks. The food for example. I love the food.

Last week it was pears. We ordered a box of pears from a farm in Medford. The climate there seems to be perfect for pears. Harry and David (who are famous for their pears) grow there. They arrived green, and we watched them with ripening anticipation. As pears do, they ripened all at once. We at them plain, make pear tarts, and about 20 pints of pear butter.

We did pear butter last year with success. I made it different from the recipe I had found (as I do with everything). The recipe called for a teaspoon of nutmeg. I searched our spice cupboard in vain for the spice, but discovered that pumpkin pie spice contains nutmeg. Since I was already in the middle of the process, I forwent the trip to the store and subbed the pumpkin pie spice. It turned out smashingly. In fact, the flavor seemed to work better as time passed. I opened our last jar a month ago, and was pleasantly surprise with how the flavors had blended in a years time. I decided to stick with the recipe this year.

This years pear butter took two batches. One more successful than the other. The first I put in a crock pot and let it simmer all night. The problems that the crock pot keeps all the juices in and it doesn't cook down enough to be called pear butter. It was more like pear sauce. I was hoping to skip the laborious step of stirring it for 2 hours as it reduces down over low heat. I guess there's no way around it. The crock method also caramelized the sugars more than usual. It wasn't bad, just not what I was looking for.

The second batch I did on the stove. It reduced better and didn't caramelize.

I tried something different this year. I did a small batch of spicy pear butter. I included a bit more sugar to emphasize the difference in sweet and spicy, and added a teaspoon of Cayenne pepper for an amount that cooked down to 2 pints. It turned out nice. It's smooth and sweet at first, the the warm spice sneaks in at the end. I'm not exactly sure what to do with it, but it does taste good. I would imagine it would be a nice sauce to go on chicken or pork.

I'm looking forward to much more delicious food this fall.