Caramelized Banana Tarts

These are the banana tarts I made for 4th of July that I mentioned in a previous post. The recipe comes from a book I picked up somewhere along the way: Celebrating Cobblers and Pies. The book is great, but a little over-the-top. This seemed easy enough for a Saturday, and once you have everything prepped and cooled, it runs pretty smoothly. There are some lapses while waiting, but I like that because I can use that time to clean up the mess I'm making.

There's a lot of components here, so try and keep up. It may get a little confusing when it's all laid out like this.

Almond Tart Dough:

Ingredients:
2 sticks very cold unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup blanched almonds, finely ground
1 egg
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups all-purpose flour

Put butter and 1/4 cup powdered sugar in food processor fitted with a metal blade. On pulse setting, mix for two minutes.

Add almonds and remaining sugar and pulse for another two minutes, until mixture is smooth.

Add egg, water, salt, and half the flour. Pulse for another two minutes, until mixture forms dough. Add remaining flour and pulse for another minute, until ball of dough is formed. Remove ball of dough from processor, cover in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour before use.

(I don't have a full sized processor, so I used my stand mixer and it worked just fine. The dough wasn't tough or thick at all, so it would probably even work with a hand mixer.)

Pastry Cream:

(makes 3 cups)

Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
6 egg yolks
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp flour
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, bring milk and 1/4 c sugar to a boil.

Meanwhile, in medium bowl, whisk yolks together with remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, cornstarch, flour, and vanilla extract until thick and well blended.

Once milk has reached a boil, lower heart to very low. using whisk, gradually add egg yolk mixture, stirring constantly until bubbles appear and mixture has pudding-like consistency (about 5 minutes). Remove pan from heat at once.

Pour cream into clean bowl and press a piece of plastic wrap against surface to create airtight seal. Refrigerate cream until cold.

Put it all together to make a banana tart:

Ingredients:

almond tart dough
1 egg, beaten
2 cups pastry cream
6 ripe bananas, cut into 1/4" slices
1/4 cup sugar

Equipment:

6 3" tartlet pans
parchment paper
pie weights of dried beans
pastry bag with 1/4" round tip

Preheat oven to 375. Working on a well-floured surface, roll out dough to a thickness of about 1/8" inch. Using a 4 in" ring or large cookies cutter, cut out six circles of dough and place on in each pan, using your fingers to gently press dough into bottom and up sides. Using a fork, make several holes in dough. Trim excess edges of dough.

Cover pans with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Place a 6" circle of parchment paper over dough in each pan. Weight down paper with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes.

Remove pie weights of beans and parchment paper, and brush crusts with beaten egg. Bake for another 3 minutes. Remove from oven and place on wire rack until crusts reach room temperature.

Fill a pastry bag with pastry cream and fill crusts, starting at edges and ending in the center. pipe in a circular motion to achieve and even layer.

Arrange banana slices evenly on top, covering all of the cream.

Sprinkle sugar evenly over bananas. use kitchen torch of broiler to brown the sugar until it bubbles and darkens. Wait until bubbles subside before serving.
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Alllll right, there were some THINGS. First of all, I couldn't find 3" tartlets at the last minute, so I used a combination of 4 and 6. That's not important information, but I thought I'd throw that out there and say hey! They worked out fine. Because I'm the kind of person who has panic attacks over differences like that.

I would only bake it for about 15 minutes the first time. They came out very browned for shells that were gonna be stuck back in the oven. After the egg white, maybe 2 minutes tops.

Do you have a kitchen torch? I do not. Why does a normal person like me need a kitchen torch? I LOVE getting my hands on the more complicated kitchen utensils, but I have never had a desire for a torch. So I used my broiler, and hoo-boy, did these puppies burn around the edges. I ended up having to construct tiny 4" foil turtlenecks for each tartlet. Say that five times fast.

Will I ever make this again? Er, no, probably not. Do I hope someone else makes them and sends me some, frozen and Fed-exed? Yes!