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Baked Bananas
Remove the skin from the bananas and cut them lengthwise in halves and arrange at the bottom of a baking-dish close together. Sprinkle them over with sugar, with a few lumps of butter on top and a little grated nutmeg over the whole, and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. By this time the bananas should be well glazed, and if there is not sufficient of their own liquor to baste them with add a little to the dish a few minutes before taking out of the oven. They should be served with cake and milk.
A straightforward baked fruit dish that needs only a few clarifications on heat, quantity and timing.
- Oven temperature"A moderate oven" in this period corresponds roughly to 325-375F; around 350F is a safe reading. At that heat the sugar and butter melt into a syrup rather than scorching.
- Choose ripe, not softBananas well flecked with brown bake to a glaze; green-tipped ones stay starchy and never release the "own liquor" the recipe counts on. Very soft ones collapse into puree.
- QuantitiesThe original gives none. For six halves (three bananas) in a shallow dish, about 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 tablespoons butter cut into small lumps is right; brown sugar gives a darker glaze than white.
- The liquid to addOscar means a spoonful or two of something to loosen the syrup for basting. Water, orange juice or a little cream all work; add it near the end as directed, not at the start, or the fruit steams instead of glazing.
- TimingTwenty minutes, as the recipe gives, suits halved bananas in a single layer. Check at fifteen; they are done when the cut surfaces are burnished and the syrup bubbles at the edges. Left much longer, the fruit slumps.
- Crowding matters"Close together" is deliberate. Packed side by side, the halves hold their shape and pool their juices; spread out on a sheet pan they dry at the edges.
- ServingThree bananas serve three to four as written. The recipe specifies only "cake and milk"; a plain sponge or pound cake and cold milk would suit. Cream or ice cream is the obvious modern substitute.
Bananas were still something of a novelty of trade rather than a pantry staple when Oscar Tschirky was running the Waldorf's dining rooms at the turn of the twentieth century. Regular steamer traffic from Central America and the Caribbean had only recently made them cheap and dependable in East Coast cities, and cookbooks of the 1890s and 1900s treat them with the enthusiasm reserved for a fruit that had lately been expensive. Baking was one of the standard ways to handle them.