Banana cream (Entremet à la purée de bananes)
When we lived in Paris in the mid 70's (me pregnant with our first child conceived on the Côte d'Azur :) there was a cookbook published monthly as a series, to be collected and eventually bound. It was called La cuisine de A à Z. I managed to collect five of them, one of them containing the "entremets". This banana pudding is one of the recipes that appears on our table occasionally, to the delight of all the members of the family. It is recipe of medium fuss, it needs a bit of time with three different steps in the preparation. But it is all worth it in the end!
6 bananas
lemon juice
100ml (1/2 cup) whipping cream or half-and-half
2 tbs rum or 1 ts rum essence
40gr + 35gr butter
½ l (2 cups) milk
4 large eggs
50gr flour
80gr+50gr+50gr sugar
1 ts vanilla essence
Pour the milk into a 2L glass container, retaining 1/2c of it. Bring the milk to boil in the microwave oven. Break 3 eggs, separating them into two bowls, putting only two whites to be whipped, one will be put aside for another use. Now add the fourth whole egg to the three yolks, add the 80gr of sugar, beat them together, slowly adding and incorporating the flour, alternating with the retained milk. Now pour this mix into a pot, slowly add the boiling milk to it, the cook it over medium heat, stirring the mix with a wire whip so it will not develop clots. Alternately, you can pour the flour and egg mix slowly into the hot milk in the glass bowl and carefully thicken it in the microwave, stirring every few minutes. Now add the 40gr butter and the vanilla, beat it in, then put the container in some cold water in the sink to cool it while preparing the bananas.
Mash the bananas and sprinkle lemon juice (about 1 tbs) over the mash to make sure it does not brown. In a saucepan melt the 35gr butter, add the banana mash with 50gr sugar and keep stirring over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Now add the cream and cook it for another 5 minutes, until it thickens a bit. Ad the rum, stir a little loner, then remove and cool it in the sink while you prepare the egg whites.
Beat the whites, slowly adding the leftover sugar, until it forms stiff peaks. If both the cream and the bananas are cool, mix the two, then gently fold in the whites. Cover the bowl with a cling wrap and place it in the fridge to cool it thoroughly. For special occasions you can decorate the top with extra banana slices and/or whipped cream.
