I love the combination of chocolate and banana, for many years my favorite ice cream was Ben and Jerry's Chunky Monkey and one of my favorite cakes was banana cake with chocolate frosting, and this tart was another winner. It felt a bit silly to serve it for two people on a weeknight (we'll be eating this for days...), but this would be great for company.
It seems to be becoming a theme around here, but I split this one over multiple nights. On Monday I made the dough for the shortbread. On Tuesday I baked it off. Wednesday night I made the caramelized bananas - I think I cut mine way too thinly, they turned into mush - and the ganache. I know Dorie said not to fill the tart until you were ready to serve, but I was in a lazy mood so I filled the crust with the bananas and ganache, wrapped it well in saran and foil, and left it in the fridge over night.
I decided to keep dinner light on Thursday - a good excuse to eat more tart! - so I made one of my favorite salads (Sara Moulton's Chopped Salad) with some lettuce from the garden (I think it's growing faster than we can eat it!). After dinner, I finished up the pie. I totally forgot to put apricot jam on my shopping list this week (and didn't happen to have any extra in the house). I briefly debated going back to the store to get some, but decided to improvise instead. I finished the pie with a drizzle of honey and some flaky sea salt.
My only complaint about this tart is that I could definitely taste the lemon juice on the bananas. Did anybody else have this problem? I tried to only use a very small amount and shake it off before putting the bananas on the tart, but I guess I still used too much. Also, I used three bananas and still only made two rows on the outside of the tart pan. Did other people manage to cover the tart? Maybe my pan is too big. Slight lemon taste aside, I loved this tart. I love chocolate and the bittersweet ganache was outstanding, and I loved the surprise of the caramelized bananas inside.
Your tart looks great! I always lay my banana slices on some paper towels to absorb the excess lemon and also blot the tops. Works pretty well!
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful that looks. I used a square pan, had too much of everything so I used the
ReplyDeleteextra ganache to dip fresh pineapple. I would love to use some berries on this same recipe sometime. Because that ganache was so easy to prepare, we could all become fantastic pastry chefs. Ha.Ha. Great job. Have a happy weekend.
Oh, a reverse ring of bananas. Very creative!
ReplyDeleteNo, you aren't alone in the banana thing. I used just a squirt of lemon juice and it was still too sour! Yeck.
ReplyDeleteYour tart looks great though! So does the salad. I'm off to look up that recipe!
No, I think a few people had the issues with the banana & I am not sure what sized bananas were used in the original recipe, but they must have been much larger than mine.
ReplyDeleteLovely tart :-)
I had the same banana problem. I ended up using two for the caramelized bananas, and honestly thought that three probably would have been the right number. And I used three to top the tart and also didn't manage to cover it. Oh well, it tasted good anyway. And I think you're idea of spreading the work out over a week was probably the the right way to go.
ReplyDeleteYour tart looks delicious. I made the Nutella hazelnut version, so didn't have to worry about the bananas, but they look yummy!
ReplyDeleteMy caramelized bananas were total mush too, though it tasted really good. I would make at least double the amount for next time. I made mini-tarts, so can't count the top bananas the same way. I think I put one banana on top of each tart (I made two). I think this tart was quite manageable by breaking up all the steps. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteI believe it is a great idea to pair a light lunch/dinner with these kinds of decadent desserts. A soup or a salad is always a wonderful idea - your Double Chocolate Banana Tart and Chopped Salad look like they were just perfect together! Nice idea!
ReplyDeleteI still am not sure if it was the lemon juice or the apricot jam that we didn't care for because we just couldn't figure out what the strong flavor was. The honey and sea salt sound like such good toppings for this. I'm glad you liked this one.
ReplyDelete