Fussy Banana bread

Whip up 1 1/2 recipe of Alton Brown's Bananas Foster, here's the expanded version:

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 3/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon banana liqueur
• 3 ripe bananas, sliced in half lengthwise
• 1/2 cup dark rum
• 1/2 teaspoon finely grated orange zest

Melt butter in a 10-inch heavy skillet over low heat. Add brown sugar, allspice and nutmeg and stir until sugar dissolves. Add banana liqueur and bring sauce to simmer. Add bananas and cook for 1 minute on each side, carefully spooning sauce over bananas as they are cooking. Remove bananas from pan to a serving dish. Bring sauce to a simmer and carefully add the rum. If the sauce is very hot, the alcohol will flame on its own. If not, using stick flame, carefully ignite and continue cooking until flame dies out, approximately 1 to 2 minutes.  Add orange zest and stir to combine

(OK Let's be honest here, what you REALLY want to do is make 6 banana's worth and eat three Fostered Bananas with ice cream)

Puree the bananas and sauce together and allow to cool, then add to this modified banana bread recipe:

3 bananas foster, pureed with sauce
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 ½ cup flour


1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.
2. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour mixture into a buttered 4×8 inch loaf pan. Bake for 50 minutes to one hour, or until a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack. Remove from pan and slice to serve.

It looks like banana bread.  It looked like banana bread before we ate it all.  Sorry, this one was too good for pictures.  But trust me, the extra steps were worth it.

Now, if you really want to go crazy, try banana bread french toast sometime....