Christoph and Steffi's Food and Travel & Christoph and Steffi's Food and Travel EN DE
A banana tarte tatin flipped onto a plate with glossy caramelized banana halves on top
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Dessert French European Vegetarian Nut-free

Quick Banana Tarte Tatin

The fastest tatin in the book, because bananas need no peeling beyond the skin, no coring and no precooking, and they caramelise in the oven in the time the pastry takes to rise. Slightly underripe fruit is the whole trick, since a spotty soft banana turns to purée under a pastry lid while a firm yellow one holds its shape and goes toffee at the edges.

Prep8 min
Cook25 min
Rest10 min
Oven200°C
Servings6
Cook mode

Christoph's shortcut tatin worked with bananas, using the melted butter and brown sugar method rather than a dry caramel.

Ingredients

Written for a 25 cm pan

Units
Temperature
Servings
6

Pan caramel

  • 60 g unsalted butter
  • 90 g dark brown sugar
  • 15 ml dark rum (optional)
  • 2 g flaky sea salt

Bananas and pastry

  • 6 bananas, firm and just yellow, no brown spots
  • 10 ml lemon juice
  • 320 g all-butter puff pastry, one ready-rolled sheet, kept cold

Dietary labels are a guide, not a guarantee. If you have an allergy, read the ingredients yourself.

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 200°C.
  2. Melt the butter and brown sugar in a 25 cm ovenproof skillet over medium heat, swirling for about 2 minutes until smooth and bubbling. Stir in the rum, if using, and let it bubble for 30 seconds to drive off the alcohol. Take the pan off the heat and scatter over the salt.
  3. Halve the bananas lengthwise, then cut each half across if they are long. Toss them gently with the lemon juice, which keeps them from greying and cuts the sweetness.
  4. Lay them cut-side down in the syrup, packed tightly in a single layer, curved sides fitting into each other. Fill the middle with the offcuts.
  5. Cover with the pastry. Trim the cold sheet to a circle about 2 cm wider than the pan, prick all over with a fork, drape it over and tuck the edge down inside the pan wall.
  6. Bake 22 to 25 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden and the syrup is dark and thick at the edges. Bananas cook faster than any other tatin fruit, so start checking at 20.
  7. Rest 10 minutes and flip onto a rimmed plate. Serve warm, with cold cream or vanilla ice cream, which is the correct partner for warm caramelised banana and not a suggestion.

Notes

  • Underripe is right and ripe is wrong. A banana with brown spots has already converted its starch to sugar and has no structure left; under a pastry lid it becomes a sweet beige layer. Buy them a couple of days before you need them.
  • Do not move the bananas once they are in the pan. They are fragile, and stirring or repositioning after the first minute breaks them into mush. Place each one deliberately.
  • Rum is worth it here more than in most tatins. Banana and dark rum is an old pairing, and the alcohol cuts what is otherwise a very sweet dessert. Leave it out for children and add a little extra lemon instead.
  • Best eaten within an hour. Banana tatin does not keep well overnight; the fruit weeps and the pastry goes soft.

Good with

From Christoph Mayer

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