Banana Creme Caramels

This might make you laugh..... I'm on a diet ! Seriously - I've been doing pretty well.
 Two weeks and 8lb down so far. Long way to go right enough, but hey ho - I've done it before, so nothing is impossible.

 No starchy carbs for me - I'm on absolutely no flour, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes (so that means cake too). That means fat and sugar consumption are minimal too (butter, sugar etc just aren't on the menu) Just some lean meat or fish and fresh vegetables and a small amount of fruit. Actually, I'm not that hungry despite eating only about 600 > 700cals a day. First few days of no carbs gave me hideous migranes but those are long gone now.

Saying that - I've got a couple of blog posts from last month still to do with cake photos

I made these just over a week ago and very good they were too (from the little taste I had).

 They got the thumbs up from Oliver - who kept opening the fridge just to check if there were any left and from the lads at work who got to scoff the rest after Steve and Oliver had devoured one each.

This recipe is a bit of a twist on a classic creme caramel recipe. I had a couple of bananas left that were totally black and ready for the bin. Having made (and given away) some banana and walnut teabread the day before, these remaining bananas were screaming to be chucked in the bin. However, they were absolutely glorious baked into this creme caramel.

I used a 6 cell extra deep silicone muffin mould for my creme caramels. I also use this mould for mini victoria sponge cakes and small single pies. When making small single pies, I've got one mould cut into 3 x 2 cells. After making the pies (but before baking) I wrap and freeze pairs of pies for future use and bake right in the same mould after defrosting.

INGREDIENTS

Caramel

120g white sugar

2 tablespoons of water

For the Banana Custard

400mls full fat milk

1.1/2 over ripe (black skinned) bananas

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

3 egg yolks

100g caster sugar

Put the sugar and water in a large heavy based frying pan or saucepan. Put over a medium heat. Don't stir - just leave and watch until the sugar has melted and starts to turn a golden caramel brown.

Pour a little of this into each cell of your mould and swirl it around to coat the bottom and partially up the sides as far as you dare. CAUTION - the sugar will be seriously hot and can burn ! You need to work quite fast as the caramel will harden quickly.

There is enough sugar to do 8 cells, but only enough of the custard to make 6 banana creme caramels.

You can see the caramel in this cut up mould that I use for pies - just a shame there was not enough custard to fill these ones too !

For the banana custard :

Using a fine sieve, force the black skinned bananas through the sieve using a wooden spoon to form a smooth puree.

Add to this, 1 tsp of vanilla extract, 2 whole eggs and 3 egg yolks and whisk to combine.

Heat your oven to 150deg C Fan

Look out a roasting tin that your mould will fit into, and get a kettle of water ready to boil.

Heat the milk in a pan with the sugar until almost simmering. Remove from the heat and whisk the hot milk into the banana / egg mix.

Strain this mixture through a sieve into a jug ready to pour into your moulds.

Put the mould into the roasting tin and fill all 6 cells. Mine filled to within 3mm of the top of each cell..

Carefully pour boiling water into the roasting tray around the mould. The water should come at least 1/2 way up the side of the cells.

Pop the roasting tray into the oven. Your creme caramels will be cooked in approx 25 > 30 mins. The tops will have a skin developed and may brown a little. You want to cook until the top centre is solidified, but still wobbles.

Allow to cool to room temperature and then refrigerate overnight to let the carmel start to dissolve and infuse into the set custard base.

To release, run a blunt table knife round the top of each cell. Give a little push to the bottom and simply turn out. There may be a crunchy disc of caramel pop out as well as some liquid caramel. This can be left on and will start to dissolve as the caramel starts to warm a little in room temperature. Quite nice to sever it with the crunchy bit too though !

Sounds hard, but in fact very easy to make and an impressive looking pudding. Never known them done with bananas, but it was subtle and worked really really well.

Hope you are all well and looking forward to dropping in on your blogs soon

Sarah-Jane Nash, September 2011 -  www.siliconemoulds.com