Flambeed Bananas with Baked Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding

Flambeed Bananas with Baked Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding

I enjoyed the rice pudding so much yesterday, I decided to make another. This time I added some flambeed bananas to the rice pudding.

What’s it like? So tasty. The bananas are all caramelised and toffee-ish. And the baked vanilla rice pudding is another winner. Honestly, I think coconut rice pudding might be better than rice pudding made with dairy milk.

Any mishaps? Um, yeah. That’s why this is so late. Well, partly why.

So the way I photographed the ingredients yesterday seemed like the best and clearest way to do it. So I did it again. I lay everything flat on the table to take the photo. Even the bottle of rum and triple sec. Can you guess what happened? No the two bottles did not roll off. Just the triple sec. With me screaming “Noooooooooo!”. Yeah. So not the ideal way to photograph ingredient after all. Who knew? Presumably every other food blogger out there.

Something I didn’t mention yesterday is that the rice pudding was actually my second attempt at a dessert. I first tried to flambée bananas by sprinkling some sugar on them. And dosing them in rum and triple sec. It didn’t work. The alcohol would set alight.

This is something I actually had as a dessert. But what alcohol they used to make it, I have no idea. I wish I did. It was in Madagascar. You have to leave the banana burn and when the flame finally extinguishes the banana is all caramelised and lovely. It looks really simple to do. No idea how to make it – still.

I thought maybe they first heated the alcohol, so I drained off the liquid into a small saucepan, brought it the boil and set it alight – and light it did. I was vaguely worried for a small second that the kitchen would burn down. It didn’t. Thankfully. So then I poured the flaming alcohol back over the bananas but after a few seconds it went out and that wasn’t long enough to roast the banana. So… I tried a couple more times but to no avail. I gave up.

But not until after I had put the bananas in the pan with the flaming alcohol – so they were properly cooked by the end. And even with the taste of several burnt matches, the hot banana, triple sec and rum tasted reasonably good.

Then the baked rice pudding turned out to be so yummy and I thought why not just flambée them in a pan and serve them with a vanilla rice pudding? Basically I wanted to see would the baked rice pudding be as good without the spices and with vanilla instead. It’s different but just as yummy.

I liked it so much I put a heart of chocolate on the plate with it. But then after a couple of days I noticed that the bananas looked kinda like sea monsters. So, had to change them because this deserves photos that look as good as it tastes.

OK, I was going to put chocolate on it anyhow – just in case the flambée went wrong.

Oh and this is definitely a diet-be-damned pud’.

Yeah. So I really liked the way I had the ingredients in yesterday’s photo. It was so easy to read everything. So I thought I’d do it again. Guess what happened? That’s right. The Triple Sec rolled off the table…

Flambeed Bananas with Baked Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding

Serves 2

Flambeed Bananas with Baked Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding

Ingredients

  • 1 400ml tin full-fat coconut milk
  • 1 dessertspoon (about 25g) caster sugar
  • 1 teaspon vanilla bean paste
  • 70g pudding rice
  • nutmeg
  • coconut oil
  • salt
  • 2 large bananas, just-ripe
  • Triple Sec
  • White Rum
  • 1 orange, for a few small strips of zest
  • chocolate, optional for serving

Instructions

    To make the rice pudding
  1. Tturn on the oven to 140 C and grease an oven dish. Add the coconut milk to a deep saucepan. Fill the empty tin with water and add that too. Whisk in the sugar, vanilla bean paste and a small pinch of salt. Turn on the heat. Stir in the pudding rice and bring to the boil. Once it starts to boil, remove from the heat and pour into the oven dish. Drizzle over a little melted coconut oil and a tiny pinch of salt. Grate over some nutmeg. Put in the oven and bake for about 1 hour. Turn down the heat to 100 C and bake for a further 30 minutes.
  2. To flambée the bananas
  3. First peel the bananas, cut in half and slice lengthwise. Add two tablespoons of coconut oil to the pan together with a tiny pinch of salt and the orange zest. When the coconut oil is melted and the zest is starting to sizzle, add in the bananas. Let them brown. Add in a splash of rum and a splash of triple sec. Set it on fire. If you're worried about doing this just let the alcohol boil down to a sauce.
  4. Serve the flambeed bananas with the rice pudding and add a little chocolate for garnish is you like.
http://twimii.com/recipes/flambeed-bananas-with-baked-vanilla-coconut-rice-pudding/

coconut oil and salt
So yesterday I forgot to take any photos of the process of making the rice pudding. Pretty much the same today. But I got a shot of the coconut oil and salt, with the pudding before it’s been baked.
Out of the oven – and just took a tiny taste before I remembered I had to take a photo.
just frying really
Yeah – I’m not sure whether this is really caramelizing – or just frying. I like the results either way.
other side too
And turnover.
about this much
I added about this much alcohol. – No idea how much it is.
at this point i questioned the wisdom of this method
Set it on fire!!! *sigh* Yeah, at this point I did question whether I really should be instructing anyone on how to flambée.
result
The flambée didn’t burn off all the alcohol. Because I was worried I’d start a fire so I kept moving the pan off the heat. But I just let the flame die, kept the alcohol boiling away and it evaporated with heat. I think that’s what happened…

So how do you flambée bananas?

I clearly don’t know. So let’s find out … OK here’s a recipe for flambéed bananas. OK, I think you do just set it on fire. Um… Maybe if you’re as hapless and as hopeless in the kitchen as me, just let the rum and triple sec reduce down to a sauce by letting it boil in the pan – that works perfectly well too.

Good dessert.

flambeed-bananas-with-baked-vanilla-coconut-rice-pudding1
Flambeed Bananas with Baked Vanilla Coconut Rice Pudding
good-vegan-dessert
And with a little sprinkle of dark chocolate.