wanderlust: banana brulée & ice cream

fudgy success with cookie + cream ice cream

Last night was probably the worst baking disaster of my entire baking career thus far. Worst than the time my chouquettes fell flat, the time the icing melted off the cake, and the time my cupcakes exploded. After I mixed and left (what I thought was) my loaf of lavender banana bread, 35 minutes later I took it out of the oven and realized: I forgot to add flour.

After several minutes of panicking and self deprecation, my roommate Sarah decided to try the concoction I had made. She found a spoon, took the tiniest little scoop... and it was good. Even though it was pretty much just sugar and bananas at this point, I figured that I'd salvage what I could by taking the denser sections into ramekins, baking them until they bubbled, and served ice cream on top. Sure, this is not actually a brulée... but the sugar, bananas and spices came together strangely well sans flour so I'm calling this baking disaster-turned-success whatever the hell I want.

Note: In each of these pictures the brulée looks like straight chocolate. There was absolutely no chocolate in the recipe, but the mixture ended up tasting like hot fudge. Go figure.

15 comments:

Jenni Austria GermanyJanuary 13, 2011 at 12:44 AM
stop it. stop it right now. i will pay for you to fly to europe if you make this for me!!!
Kalei's Best FriendJanuary 13, 2011 at 4:56 AM
I linked back to your banana recipe and wow, those are gorgeous... Where did u get the lavender? Or did u pick it from a shrub? I have several... don't feel bad, I've left out many an ingredient..
UnknownJanuary 13, 2011 at 6:10 AM
love!! salvaging baking disasters is the most gratifying feeling ever.
AlexJanuary 13, 2011 at 6:59 AM
Way to improvise!! That looks delicious!
AnonymousJanuary 13, 2011 at 7:51 AM
Holy deliciousness! That is weird though...it totally looks all chocolately.
CelesteJanuary 13, 2011 at 8:25 AM
Jenni- I definitely accept your offer.

Kalei's Best- I bought the lavender at a tea shop in Germany. You're normally just supposed to steep them for tea, but I chopped up the leaves as finely as I could then added them to to the bread :)
AnonymousJanuary 13, 2011 at 8:42 AM
Yum. i heart your posts!
EmilyJanuary 13, 2011 at 10:04 AM
Yum! This looks sooooo good!
cbJanuary 13, 2011 at 10:08 AM
want that in my tummy!

xo,
cb
anaJanuary 13, 2011 at 10:35 AM
oh yuuuum.
LaneJanuary 13, 2011 at 7:11 PM
Haha how funny :) I love that it turned out so well it actually looks pretty good
alainaJanuary 14, 2011 at 2:13 AM
oh wow! very very impressed that you turned this disaster into something that looks so incredibly delicious...i should try and do that more often! usually i'm so discouraged that i just throw the whole thing away!
Sarah with an "h"January 14, 2011 at 7:40 AM
That's so weird! But awesome! haha Sounds like you just invented a dessert. :P

:o)Sarah
restlessromantic.blogspot.com
MackenzieJanuary 15, 2011 at 5:42 PM
wait, let me get this straight....

lavender banana bread?!?! i must know more of this, please. i feel like my life is about to begin.

even so, this looks absolutely fantastic, even without flour. at least you didn't do the mistake i almost did last week, almost forgot to add the sugar! oh silly me.
lilyJanuary 20, 2011 at 7:09 PM
gotta love the resourcefulness. my mom's a caterer, and she's an amazing cook but she has a lot of problems with desert for some reason. on a few occasions the lemon souffle or pie or cake just was not servable. luckily she's famous for her "parfaits" which is basically just taking the aesthetically ruined desert and layering it with berries and whipped cream. this totally reminded me of that :)