Crêpes with Roasted Bananas and Barbados Cream
‘Barbados cream is extremely dangerous: creamy, boozy, sweet and, with the sugar stirred into the rum just before serving, crunchy as well. You’ll make enough batter for about seven crêpes – 3 more than you will actually need. These are to account for those “missing in action”, when the cook just can’t resist temptation.’
Hands-on time 30min, plus resting. Cooking time about 40min. Serves 4
FOR THE CRÊPES
● 50g plain flour
● 1tsp light brown soft sugar
● 1 large egg
● 150ml whole milk
● 25g unsalted butter, to fry
● 20g flaked almonds, lightly toasted
FOR THE BARBADOS CREAM
● 100g mascarpone
● 150g extra-thick Greek-style yogurt (such as Fage Total)
● ½tsp vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract
● 1tbsp spiced dark rum
● 35g light brown soft sugar
FOR THE ROASTED BANANAS
● 30g unsalted butter
● 2½tbsp light brown soft sugar
● ¼tsp ground ginger
● 4 ripe bananas, peeled, halved widthways and lengthways
1 Preheat oven to 240°C (220°C fan) mark 9, or as high as it will go. For the crêpes, whisk flour in a medium bowl with sugar and ⅛tsp salt. Add egg and whisk together, then add the milk gradually, whisking till you have a smooth, thin batter. Set aside to rest for 20min.
2 For the Barbados cream, mix the mascarpone, yogurt and vanilla until smooth. Set aside.
3 For the bananas, put a medium, ovenproof frying pan over medium-high heat and add butter. Once melted, add sugar and ginger and stir for 1-2min. Remove from heat, add bananas and gently mix to coat. Arrange cut-side up. Cook in oven for 12min, or until softened and browned. Sprinkle with a little salt.
4 Put 5g of the butter for the crêpes into a medium frying pan over medium-high heat. Once melted and bubbling, add about 3½tbsp batter, swirling the pan to form a thin crêpe about 16cm in diameter. Cook for 1-2min, then, using a spatula, flip over. Cook for another 30-60sec, until browned on both sides. Set aside on a plate. Continue with the remaining butter and batter until you have 4 good crêpes (the first few may not be perfect; you may need to adjust the heat as you go). Cover and keep warm.
5 Just before serving, stir the rum and sugar (from Barbados cream ingredients) together in a separate bowl. Divide crêpes between 4 plates, then top each with ¼ of the bananas. Fold the crêpe over and spoon some of the Barbados cream alongside. Drizzle over the rum sugar, finish with the almonds and serve.
PER SERVING 536cals, 12g protein, 30g fat (18g saturates), 52g carbs (40g total sugars), 2g fibre
GET AHEAD Make crêpe batter the day before, or triple the batter, fry lots of crêpes and keep them in the freezer, separated with baking parchment, ready to be defrosted whenever you have a hankering. The cream mixture can also be made the day before, but hold off on roasting the bananas and mixing the rum with the sugar until just before serving.