If you’re like me, you’re a fan of Jamba Juice. For those who haven’t the luxury of having a Jamba near them, it’s your standard juice/smoothie bar/stop with a variety of healthy, thick smoothies (try their peanut butter and granola ones… now that is THICK!). They’re yummy, and being a creature of habit, I get the same one every time (I’ve experimented with a few others over the years, but always come back to this one)- the Banana Berry. It’s a delicious smoothie, full of banana and blueberries and who knows what else (their recipes are, of course, secret). Oddly, I’m not a big banana fan, but something about the taste, texture, and viscosity of this smoothie makes me happy. So, naturally, I sought to recreate this happiness at home.

I’ve attempted to get this recipe down many a time and am happy to say I’ve finally got it. This may not be the perfect way- and you may find a variant you like better (not everyone happens to have raspberry sorbet on hand)- but this tastes really, really close to the Jamba version, so why not make it yourself at home and save?

Banana Berry Smoothie

Ingredients:

• 1 small to medium-sized, incredibly ripe banana (so ripe it won’t hold its shape. THAT ripe.)
• 1 tablespoon raspberry sorbet
• 2/3 cup natural vanilla ice cream
• 1 cup frozen strawberries, chopped coarsely
• 1/4 cup frozen blueberries
• 1/4 cup organic skim milk
• 1 tsp clover honey
• sprinkling of sea salt

Process:

To quote Selena Gomez in her Borden Milk commercials, it’s “seriously delicious”. If you’re looking for a healthier alternative, substitute the ice cream for low-fat vanilla yogurt and cut down a bit on the milk (unless if you like it to be thinner, in which case by all means keep the liquidyness!). Yum yum yum.

I was able to use 7 of the bananas for the banana tart, however this left me another 20 or so to go. Though I had planned to avoid banana bread, I had to use all 20 remaining bananas before Friday as 1) they were ripening quickly, and 2) I knew I wouldn’t be home this weekend. I had wanted to try some banana-filled crepes from my English cookbook (it features fun European ingredients you just can’t find here, ie: “digestive biscuits” or “vanilla-wine crackers”) but they would have required firmer bananas than those I currently had, and are more of a morning thing. Thus, banana nut bread it was!

A quick evaluation of proportions yielded the following fact: I was going to have to quintuple the recipe to accomodate all my remaining bananas. Considering the fact that I was making 5 batches of this thing at once, I thought it smarter- and more fun- to diversify (just in case one of the varieties was subpar)- thus I went for two. A look at the Food Network recipe archive brought me to this one, which had some of the highest marks from reviewers I’ve seen on the website (I wanted to find one with high confidence as I was forcibly making such a large quantity at once!)

Control: Bananas, cinnamon, nutmeg

Batch A (2x recipe): Almond extract, pecans, whole wheat flour, 1 hour baking time

Batch B (3x recipe): Vanilla extract, walnuts, white (AP) flour, 50 minutes baking time

Conclusions drawn:

• The whole wheat breads rise less, thus a little extra baking powder/soda falling into the bowl isn’t a hardship. They also should probably have a shorter cooking time in the future to keep them moist.
• It’s true: those incredibly ripe, mushy bananas yield the best texture. I’m now a believer in banana myths.
• To be honest, I find little difference in the pecans and walnuts once cooked. In the future, I may not bother to differentiate.
• The almond extract I used was rather strong- just a little over a tablespoon for 2 batches’ worth of bread changed the taste drastically.
• The whole wheat breads were also far less sweet than the other variety. If you’re satisfying someone with a sweet tooth in making these, be sure to add a bit more sweetness to a WW variety.
• Have multiple bowls ready! The sugar/egg/butter mixture must be done in its own bowl, the banana/milk/spice mixture in yet another, and the flour/salt/baking soda/baking powder in a third. I started using pasta pans and cake pans, as I needed 4 bowls and I only have two (good excuse to go bowl-shopping now)

I really followed this one rather closely with few substitutions, as all the comments I read claimed this was one of those rare recipes that is very enjoyable as-is. I brought some for the boyfriend (he loves banana nut bread), his neighbors (who, I’m proud to say, started digging in with their beautiful fingers (the boyfriend’s got some very attractive neighbors), and to work. So far everyone really enjoys it, and it’s quite simple, despite the need to keep ingredients separate, so… try it out and let me know your thoughts!

So my mother, being an incredibly friendly person, is friends with the local produce manager, who offered her a bag of approximately 30 bananas for $2. She happily accepted, and gifted the large majority of them to me. 26 bananas… what to do?! A common first thought would be banana bread, but funny story about that… one load utilizes a mere 3 to 4 bananas, depending on the recipe… perhaps 5 if you’re really pushing it. Thus I was searching for ways to integrate as much banana as possible into recipes, and upon discussing this with my co-worker (call him C), I found a recipe for butterscotch banana cream pie. That didn’t quite fit my purposes, as 1) I was down to one mere egg, and 2) I was looking for something less creamy and more healthy. So a bit more research yielded a few more recipes, the threads of which began to coagulate in my mind, and a recipe was born.

This banana tarte uses the following recipes:

• This tarte crust- Which is, I promise you, the most odd and innovative crust you’ll ever try. You boil all the dough ingredients sans flour- yes, I said boil, at 410 degrees- and then when it’s sputtering angrily and blaming you for its heat, you add the flour all at once to the sizzling mess. It’s blisteringly hot, it’s unique, it’s delicious. It yields a fairly thin, buttery, flaky-but-not-crumbling crust that was just perfect. I’m saving this one for a fresh cream and berry tarte in the future, and perhaps apple tarte as well. Try it, it’s delicious, simple, and so different that your curiosity, if nothing else, will lead you to try.
• Caramel sauce- Which ended up, magically, having a surprising toffee flavour (I can’t explain how this happened). It’ll be quite liquid-y when you first make it, but worry not- some cooling will result in major thickening, and after a few hours in the fridge, this will be ready for ice cream topping!

The interior of the tarte- the banana filling- was inspired by the butterscotch filling mentioned above but in the end followed it so loosely that little was left of the original. Though I won’t give proportions as this turned out to be a successful tarte and thus a secret I refuse to share,  I can divuldge that the filling contains all of (but not only) the following ingredients: 4 large (ripe) bananas; heavy cream; ginger; cinnamon; salt; flour; butter. The magical ingredient which gives it the perfect consistency shall remain nameless, however. But some thinking as to thickening agents can probably bring you to figuring it out or finding an even better alternative!

Some lessons learned and tips when creating this or something similar:

• Though they may look a bit odd, poking holes in the tarte crust prior to baking is a must, I usually don’t and this crust was the best I have yet to produce, thus leading me to believe that this one changed variable can be (happily) held responsible for the yummy results
• Keeping a bit of dough (raw) on hand for patching things up was a brilliant suggestion by David (his blog has some fantastic recipes, by the way, so check it out if you’re in the mood for French confectionaries)- if you need to use the whole thing, mix some flour and water (my great-grandfather called this “culinary superglue”) together and that should do the trick.
• Though I avoid using butter at all costs, a tiny bit of it in the filling will stop your mixture from sticking to the sides, and will make it far more manageable when moving from pan to tarte. You can be like me and cheat by using earth balance soy butter, if that helps!
• A little patience goes a long way when slicing bananas for the top. When the tarte looks infinitely better, it tastes infinitely better (or so I hear, I actually have yet to taste it as I’m not too crazy about bananas)- seeing is believe (my advertising professors always reiterated this)
• Though they (the caramel people) seem to say otherwise- and I’ve come to the conclusion this is what toffee-itized my caramel- if you’re paranoid like me and remove the caramel from the heat too early and then are at a loss on what to do with this runny mixture with cream, put it back on the heat for 2-3 minutes and you’ll have some exciting toffee-caramel.

On to the pictures! Apologies for the long post on this one, but there was much to say :). Last thoughts: despite my sister being not particularly fond of bananas (she loves Costa Rican ones in particular (the miniature ones) but for some odd reason dislikes most others))- she can’t get enough of the tarte. Oddly, this is becoming a trend with people I offer slices of it to- despite their not being banana fans usually, they really enjoy it. I’m curious as to why this is- my sister volunteers the caramel sauce as reasoning, but I’m unsure. What are your thoughts on this experiment?

Bananas used: 7. (19 to go!)