No. 3195

"pain" of Bananas, Havanese

Pain de Bananes Havanaise

Peel eight very ripe bananas; crush the pulps and rub them through a fine sieve into a basin; add the juice of two oranges and one ounce and a half of gelatine dissolved in a gill of water, then pass the whole through a fine sieve; let it get thoroughly cold on ice and as soon as it begins to set incorporate into it the same quantity of very firm whipped cream. Have prepared a quart of clear jelly (No. 106) flavored with rum, colored with carmine, and let cool to the consistency of a thick syrup. Incrust a cylindrical jelly mold (Fig. 150) in ice, pour into the bottom a three-quarter of an inch thick layer of the banana preparation and leave it to harden; on this pour a layer of the same thickness of the rum jelly, leaving it also to harden, and over this pour another layer of the banana preparation, then another of the jelly, and so on until the mold is entirely filled, being careful that each layer is of equal thickness. Cover the top with a round piece of paper, then place on a lid with chopped ice over; leave stand for an hour and a half to two hours so that it is perfectly hard before unmolding.

← No. 3194 "pain" of Apricots Cold Entremets — Creams, Jellies & Charlottes No. 3196 "pain" of Chestnuts a la Beotie →

For the Modern Kitchen

A layered banana bavarian alternating with rum jelly, set in a cylindrical mold. It is straightforward work, but the gelatine quantity and the ice-packing method both need translating.

A gillHalf a cup, 4 fluid ounces. That is the water for softening and dissolving the gelatine.
Gelatine strengthAn ounce and a half is about 42 g, roughly six envelopes of modern powdered gelatine. Period gelatine was probably less consistent, and often weaker, than today's standardised product, so the full quantity may set harder than intended; something nearer 25 to 30 g of modern gelatine is a safer starting point.
"Pain"Loaf, in the sense of a molded shape turned out whole. Nothing is baked and there is no bread in it.
No. 106, clear jellyRanhofer's cross-reference to his own clear jelly recipe, here wanted sweet and clear. A quart of firm gelatine jelly — water or light syrup, lemon, and enough gelatine to unmold — flavored with dark rum and tinted red does the job. Add the rum off the heat so it is not driven off.
CarmineCochineal extract, still sold as a food color and still an allergen worth declaring to guests. Any red food coloring gives the same effect; the point is contrast between the pale banana layers and the red jelly.
"The same quantity" of creamEqual volume of whipped cream to the strained banana-orange-gelatine base, whipped firm but not grainy. Fold it in the moment the base begins to thicken at the edges — earlier and the cream sinks, later and the base sets in streaks.
Incrusting in icePacking the mold in chopped ice was the period's refrigeration; the recipe puts ice round the mold and more on the lid. A refrigerator does the same job more slowly, so allow longer than the recipe implies and make sure each layer is tacky-firm before pouring the next or the two will bleed.
Layer temperatureBoth mixtures must be at thick-syrup consistency when poured. Warm jelly poured onto set banana cream will melt a channel through it; cold jelly poured too thick will not bond and the pain will split along a seam when unmolded.
Unmolding and yieldUnmolding -- Dip the mold in warm water for five or six seconds, run a thin knife round the top edge, and invert onto a chilled dish. The recipe gives no mold size or number of servings.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York for the better part of thirty years, and The Epicurean (1894) is essentially that restaurant's working repertoire written out at length. The run of pains in this section — apricot, chestnut, banana — are all the same idea: a fruit purée bound with gelatine, lightened with whipped cream, and set in a shaped mold to be turned out cold, a close relation of the fruit bavarois. The Havanese tag points to Cuba, one of the sources of bananas arriving in the northeastern ports; growing steamship traffic from the Caribbean in the 1870s and 1880s turned bananas from a curiosity into something a New York kitchen could more reliably get very ripe, and the rum in the jelly extends the same geographical conceit. Such names on the period's French-language menus often say more about where an ingredient was shipped from than about any Cuban cooking tradition.