Bananas Foster Flambé from Lessons in Chemistry
We come to the end of the Apple TV+ provided recipes from Lessons in Chemistry: Bananas Foster Flambé. This was perhaps the most dangerous recipe from the show, since it involves igniting alcohol and violent flames. According to an interview with Courtney McBroom, it is the show’s homage to Julia Child, The French Chef herself, who was equally fearless in the kitchen.
It was the final recipe I made of the ten shared by Apple TV+, but it’s not the last dish Elizabeth Zott makes on the show. She cooks the dessert during a montage of recipes in episode 5 that also includes a crown roast of lamb and pineapple glazed ham. Written recipes for those and other dishes weren’t provided, but I will work my angles to find out if they exist, or otherwise try to recreate them from scratch.
The lesson Zott teaches while making the bananas foster is combustion - how the alcohol of the rum bursts into flames when ignited, burning off while leaving the flavor of the rum behind. In her words, it’s “Best served with cake” (pound cake), or you can use ice cream. I opted for the latter when I made this because it’s what I had.
What you're seeing is combustion. The effect is dramatic, but the science is simple…. Best served with cake.
- Elizabeth Zott
First I needed to rope one of my best friends into coming over along with his then-girlfriend, now wife. We made a whole evening of it. I made mac and cheese for dinner first, then we saw Onward (the Pixar movie with Tom Holland and Chris Pratt as brothers), and afterwards went back into the kitchen to flambé bananas.
Igniting the alcohol can be done in two ways: by tipping the pan into the flame underneath, at which point it will combust, or using a lighter to ignite it. When Zott made bananas foster, she had an open kitchen and didn’t cook the dish on a stovetop with a backsplash, plus her experience as a chemist made her unafraid to set fire to the pan. I’m not that brave, and I wasn’t going to wreck my backsplash, so I opted for the lighter method.
My friends were very impressed with the final result, as was I. Tasting it was even better. The rum caramel perfectly coated the bananas, which melted in our mouths along with the ice cream.
IMPORTANT SAFETY NOTE IF YOU TRY THIS: Have the lid of the pot you’re using nearby to clamp on top of the flames if they get out of hand. This will extinguish them because fire relies on oxygen to survive. If you want to tip the pan into the flame, have a fire extinguisher handy in case of emergency.
If you want to make this recipe yourself, you can get it on the official website here. You can also view a short video of the dish narrated by Courtney on the same page, or TikTok here.
