Banana Tarte Tartin, Passion Fruit & Banana Sorbet

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This is Gregoire’s Banana dessert from his Never Skip Dessert  book, which is unfortunately out of print!  Easy tart to make and made from ingredients usually in the house; butter, flour, sugar and bananas.

The first time I made it was last weekend for Emily  and husband Andrew, it was a hit.  I baked it again yesterday for this post…as soon as I finished photographing it, it was devoured in seconds.  This is coming from someone who doesn’t eat banana desserts as a rule, normally they don’t appeal.  Here on the other hand, the buttery warm tart with toffee sauce and melting cold sorbet or ice-cream hits the spot perfectly.

At first glance this recipe may appear more complicated than it actually is, but it isn’t.  You have a biscuit base, with some toffee sauce and slices of banana, really simple.  The different elements of this can all be prepared in advance, biscuit base, caramel, sorbet, leaving an easy last minute assembly.  This is good if you’ve had a drink or two and not feeling quite as sharp.

The first tarts I made for my friends, I made the Passion Fruit & Banana Sorbet and it’s delicious in its own right.  I had to make an adjustment to the recipe because my unripe passion fruits were so sour.  After mixing the fruits realising how sharp it was, I added more banana, almost doubling the amount and added more syrup, giving some sweetness to balance against the unripe passion fruit.

In the photographs here, the tarts are served with a good quality bought vanilla ice-cream, a good compromise in my book if you don’t fancy making your own sorbet.

Banana Tarte Tartin with Passion Fruit & Banana Sorbet

You’ll need metal rings for this dessert.  And foil.

This recipe makes about 10 small tarts, you’ll need one medium banana per 2 tarts.

  • 5 bananas, on the firm side
  • 1 large lemon
  • Brittany Shortbread – see below
  • Toffee Sauce – see below
To Serve with tarts, a good shop bought ice-cream or make this delicious sorbet:
Passion Fruit & Banana Sorbet
  • 250g passion fruit pulp without the seeds ( I used about 12 fruits)
  • 250g banana puree
  • 25g inverted sugar (liquid glucose)
  • 50ml water
I melted the glucose with the water added it to the puree, blended all well and poured into an ice-cream maker.

 

Brittany Shortbread

  • 185g  unsalted butter – room temperature (I used slightly salted butter and skipped the added salt)
  • 185g  caster sugar
  • 8g  sea salt
  • 300g  plain flour (cake flour)
  • 12g  baking powder
  • 45g  egg
  • 40g  yolk
  • 5g  vanilla extract
Mix butter and sugar first, add the eggs, salt and vanilla, and then flour and baking powder. I did this by hand, very easy.  At first it appears as if it needs liquid but it doesn’t, it eventually all comes together nicely, make sure butter is soft to start with.
Cool it in the fridge for a couple of hours.  Or make it a day in advance in which case it will be hard when you first take it out of fridge, leave it out for 30-45mins until pliable enough to roll.
When rolling out I left my dough quite thick, I liked the buttery biscuit base like that.

Cut using the rings and then leave the pastry inside, placing them on a baking sheet.

Bake it in preheat oven 170C fan/ 190C / 370F / gas 5, for 10-15 minutes

Turn them out of the rings and while still warm cut the peak off to giving you a flat top.  Leave them to cool.

Toffee Sauce

I added double cream to Gregoire’s caramel sauce, he approved.  If you don’t have double cream use the highest fat cream possible 35% or more fat otherwise you risk splitting when boiling.

  • 300g white sugar
  • 20g dark rum (first time I used brandy)
  • 30g salted butter
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon juice – my addition
  • 125ml of double cream
Bring the sugar to boil in a wide pan on medium heat.
When you see sugar melting around the edges and underneath, stir it.  I’ve read a long time ago you’re not suppose to do this but if I remember correctly it was because it clouds the caramel, not producing a clear see-through caramel.  I haven’t researched this yet.  Here it doesn’t matter.

Once all of the sugar is dissolved, add the butter and alcohol.

At this point it will splatter and the sugar will harden but keep it over the heat and keep stirring.

It will melt again.

Add the cream and lemon juice and keep stirring until blended.

Now the toffee sauce is ready, this can be made in advance and when ready to use bring it back to melting point over low heat.

Assembling the Dessert

Place the rings on some foil, wrapping the foil around the rings very tightly.

Cut the bananas and place them in some lemon juice.

Place one tablespoon of the toffee sauce over the bottom of the rings, arrange the slices of bananas as neatly as you can.

This was the hardest part in making this dessert, placing the bananas in the rings.  The rings were small and deep and my fingers too fat, it was a fiddly job.  

Don’t worry too much because once they’re cooked you can gently re-arrange them neatly.  If the slices are too thick you can’t overlap them and if they’re too thin by the time they’re cooked they’ll disintegrate.

Place the biscuits over the top.  Bake at the same temperature as before for 10-12 minutes.

Let them stand for 30 seconds before turning them over.

And to my surprise most of them turned out well.

The odd one that fell off or stuck to the foil was easily re-arranged.

I served the rest of the sauce warmed up on the side.

Ta-da!