Rania's Recipes: Tarte Tatin & Bananas Foster

Who doesn't like desserts and pastries right? If you're in the mood to make some at home, be sure to try out this recipe from Rania Harris today!

Tarte Tatin

8 Golden Delicious apples – peeled and cut into 6 pieces each
2 cups sugar
½ stick butter
Cinnamon

Pate Sucree:

2 cups all purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 ½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted chilled butter
1 egg – beaten with enough ice water to measure ¼ cup
2 tablespoons ice cold apple juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut and peel apples.

Place sugar in the Tartin pan and cook over the stove until it turns into a light caramel. Remove from heat and add the butter. Stir the butter into the caramel until it is completely melted. Add the sliced apples to the pan, evenly distributing them over the caramel. Sprinkle with a little bit of cinnamon, to taste.

Place dough on apples and tuck dough edges around apples.

Bake the Tartin in the oven at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes or until the crust turns golden brown.

Remove the Tarte Tatin from the oven allow to cool for 10 minutes before turn over onto the serving dish that comes with the pan. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

Pate Sucree:

In the bowl of your Cuisinart food processor, combine flour, salt and sugar with the butter until a coarse meal forms. With the machine still running, add the egg and ice water mixture along with the apple juice through the feed tube and process just until a soft dough forms. If you find that you need to add a bit more water to form the dough, do very sparingly, to avoid making your dough tough.

Remove the dough from the bowl of the Cuisinart and form the dough into a round disk. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and chill before rolling, for about 20 minutes.

Roll the dough on a floured board into a circle large enough to cover the apples as well as to tuck the dough down the sides of the pan.

Bananas Foster

½ cup raisins
2/3 cup dark rum
½ cup unsalted butter
½ cup brown sugar
8 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced lengthwise
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 quarts vanilla ice cream
½ cup slivered toasted almonds

Directions:

Soak the raisins in the rum to plump them.

Melt the butter in a sauté skillet. Add the brown sugar and heat gently, stirring until the sugar has melted, about 2 minutes. Add the bananas and cook until tender, 3 to 5 minutes, turning once with a spatula.

Sprinkle the bananas with cinnamon. Pour the rum and raisins over the bananas and flambé them, basting the fruit with the sauce until the flames subside.

Transfer the banana slices to 8 plates. Top with the vanilla ice cream, spoon over the rum and raisin sauce, sprinkle with almonds and serve at once.

Makes: 8 servings