Banana

Baking a batch of these ultra-moist cupcakes is a great way to use overripe bananas; keep a bunch in your freezer (unpeeled) and thaw when you’re ready to use. You can substitute walnuts for pecans, or leave the nuts out entirely. Caramel buttercream makes a satisfyingly sweet topping; cream-cheese frosting (page 303) and chocolate–sour cream frosting (page 311) are also good choices. Left unfrosted, the cupcakes can be enjoyed any time of day.

Roasting the fruit before folding it into the batter gives these cupcakes a pronounced banana flavor and keeps them very moist. Honey, often paired with bananas, is added to the frosting.

This gluten-free, dairy-free, no-cook tart relies on dates and pecans for a sturdy crust, maple syrup for sweetness, and bananas and coconut for tropical flavors. The cashew “cream” is made by grinding cashews with water and vanilla-bean seeds. Soaking the nuts overnight in water ensures a puddinglike texture once they are ground. All in all, it makes an enticing dessert, even for those without food allergies or sensitivities.

In the heyday of roadside restaurants, this tempting dessert was typically placed in the rotating glass case near the entrance, the better to entice hungry passersby. It was a good strategy: The pie’s velvety banana custard and billowy whipped-cream topping were—and remain—impossible to resist.

In one batch, find the flavors of two bakery classics: chocolate chip cookies and banana bread. Chopped walnuts and rolled oats add texture and more layers of taste. Use a ripe banana, which has more concentrated flavor, and is easier to mash, than an unripe one.

My nephew Bret is allergic to eggs, which always presents a challenge when it comes to dessert. The bigger challenge is that Bret loves banana pudding. When a seven-year-old boy who is very cute asks why everyone else is having banana pudding while he is not, Aunt Trisha has to think quickly, and because my regular recipe calls for four eggs, I have to get really creative. This banana pudding recipe came about on the spot, and Bret isn’t the only one who loves it!

We should rename this recipe Goldilocks Pudding! My mother’s notes say she made several attempts at my dad’s favorite dessert before coming up with this particular version—not too hard, not too soft. It has become a mainstay in my home, too. Garth prefers the pudding without the meringue, so I usually make two versions, one with and one without. Either way, it’s a homey, satisfying finish to any meal.

My sister hates bananas. Imagine all of the yummy recipes that eliminates for her! Nonetheless, when my niece Ashley makes this banana bread, it’s so good, even Beth will eat it. Maybe it has something to do with all that butter.

Our good friends Dyan Solomon and Éric Girard own Olive + Gourmando, a perfect luncheonette on Saint Paul West in Montreal’s Old Port. Their little shop is what we expect the coffee shop in the afterlife to be like: they’re detail fanatics and it’s no contest the best place for lunch in the city. When they first opened, they were bakers, and the place was a bakery with a few seats. They still make bread, but mostly to use in delicious sandwiches. The front counter is displayed with brioches, croissants, brownies, and fruit pastries, and they’re all killer. We thought they were insane when they decided to open in Old Port a decade ago. It was a barren ghost town of bombed-out buildings, seedy bars, and grow-ops. There were no people, much less hotels and tourist shops selling maple-sugar products and “raccoon” Daniel Boone hats actually made from Chinese skunks. Like us, Éric and Dyan don’t take anything too seriously (Dyan can tell you many stories of Fred’s practical jokes when they used to work together: her showing up at 6:00 A.M. to a fake “dead man” at the bottom of the stairs; Fred putting a scraped lamb shank in his shirt, saying he may have hurt his hand. . . .) They’re Montreal classics and were kind enough to hand over one of their most beloved recipes.

Our homemade ice-cream sandwiches get raves when we serve them for lunch at the Workshop. We assemble them with cake instead of cookies to make them easier to eat. You can use any homemade or store-bought ice cream, but this caramel-banana–chocolate chip invention from pastry chef Marcel Desaulnier, who participated in the 1989 Workshop, is beyond delicious.

This cake is a less dense version of banana bread, so it can be served in many ways. At Tribeca Treats we typically serve it with Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing (page 150), but it also tastes great with Cream Cheese Icing (page 144), the “Sassy” Cinnamon variation on the Vanilla Icing (page 136), or even consider baking it in a loaf pan, cutting off a slice, and serving it alongside chocolate mousse or whipped cream and fresh berries. The key to this recipe is to use overripe bananas. Typically, the browner the peel, the sweeter the banana has become. Since bananas are usually on the greener side in the grocery store, plan on buying them several days in advance of when you’ll be making the cake. Keeping them in a closed paper bag at room temperature will speed the ripening process.

The ideal bananas for cooking are just ripe, yellow with barely any brown spots. Double this recipe if you want a more substantial dessert or serve with vanilla ice cream.

Ginger, my mother, never liked a bunch of kids in her house. Even as a young girl, I could feel her angst when too many neighborhood kids were around. Her clever solution was to bake a plate of my favorite Bacon Banana Cookies and leave them on the front porch, locking the door behind her. I never minded being sequestered outside with my food loot in the summer because the porch concrete cooled my skin. The winter—that was a different story. When I bake these cookies now for my son, Anthony, I'm secretly baking them for myself. I wonder if my mom did the same thing? I'll be sure to ask her...as soon as she unlocks the front door.

Plantains, a staple throughout much of Africa, are spiced up here to be served as a slightly sweet side dish. Warm, deeply satisfying, and quick, this is unusual and good even on weeknights. Best with West African, Caribbean (especially Lechon Asado, page 375), Mexican, and South American dishes. Other vegetables you can prepare this way: green bananas or potatoes, both of which will need longer cooking time.

Raita is salad, relish, dip, and side dish in one. Yogurt-based, it usually includes something sharp to balance the sour blandness: onion, spices, mustard, even chiles. (It’s most closely associated with India, but similar mixtures are made in the Middle East.) The recipe here is the basic foundation of many raitas and is usually not eaten as is but added to according to preference. There are infinite variations, of which the ones that follow are among the most popular. All balance spicy curries well but are also good eaten on their own or as a dip for flatbreads, like those on pages 559–565.

The small “finger” bananas are perfect for this, because they’re denser-fleshed than regular bananas; you can find them at many supermarkets and almost all Asian and Latin markets. Regular bananas work well too, of course, but they should not be too ripe.

Neither blueberries nor cobblers are Italian, but one of the largest and oldest blueberry farms in what is called the blueberry capital of the world is Indian Brand Farms, run by the DiMeo family of New Jersey. I had a wonderful blueberry cobbler when I visited, and my version of that recipe is simple and delicious.

Hands down, this is Michael’s favorite cake. It’s a sweet, scrumptious memory of the days when his mother, Carmel, would bake it for him. In the Groover household, it was a family tradition that on your birthday you chose your favorite cake. Michael remembers this cake becoming his favorite at age five, and his request has not changed to this day. So naturally this just had to be his groom’s cake.

I serve this as a congealed salad at holiday meals.