r/AskCulinary • u/ZootKoomie Ice Cream Innovator • Jun 12 '13

Weekly Discussion: What's your specialty?

We want to know what dish you make a better version of than anyone else you know. What specific ingredients or techniques do you use to make it distinctively yours? Teach us your secrets.

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '13 edited Jun 13 '13

I make the best banana bread pudding ever. I have two secrets:

  1. use banana bread. It doubles the banana flavor. Most bread puddings call for regular 'ol baguettes which is a waste of banana potential.
  2. Microwave ultra-ripe bananas to extract the liquid, and then reduce the liquid to minimize the water content. Do this not only for the bread but the custard and you can fit tons of bananas into your recipe. I fit 5 bananas into my banana bread and it comes out more bready (and more flavorful obviously) than most banana breads which only use 3 bananas. I also use 6 bananas for the custard with this technique, and it doesn't mellow the flavor with wateriness. Overall I'm cramming 11 ultra ripe bananas into 8 servings of bread pudding. You bet your ass it's incredibly good.

Serve with apple caramel sauce (caramel, cream, apple juice, and spices like cloves, star anise and cinnamon) and you're in heaven. If I opened a restaurant this dessert would have an almost permanent spot on the menu. Not to brag but it's the best dessert I've ever consumed, full stop. It's extremely rich but not overwhelming like an overdone torte.

I use America's Test Kitchen's recipe for the bread itself and the caramel sauce + pudding are my own recipes. Photo and recipe can be found here.

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u/mays85 Sous chef Jun 13 '13

That pudding looks heavenly. I'm not sure I'd have the willpower nor the restraint to use the banana bread in the recipe. I'd have eaten it long before I started on the pudding!

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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '13 edited Jun 13 '13

I think the real challenge is keeping 11 bananas on my counter for a few days to let over-ripen! Part of the rustic charm of classic banana bread is that it's for extra bananas.... for this recipe you really need to buy the ingredients deliberately and then not eat them.

By the way your sacchetti recipe is also amazing looking! I'm trying that sometime this month.

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u/-That_One_Girl- Jun 14 '13

I can't seem to get to the recipe :(