ffwD: Double Chocolate & Banana Tartlets

I’m usually not a fan of fruit and chocolate, but when I saw caramelized bananas in this week’s ffwD recipe, it seemed promising. As usual, whenever I make any of Dorie’s tart doughs, it’s only enough to hand-press into five tartlet shells. (I tried rolling out her tart dough once, and it was a disaster.) One downside to having multiple tartlet shells is that there’s more opportunity for an errant shell to flip and break. This time it happened as I was taking the shells out of the oven, and I was left with four chocolate tartlet shells. I suppose this was a good thing because my caramelized banana slices turned into caramelized banana mush, and I wasn’t sure I’d have enough to “spread” across five tartlet shells anyway. So being down one shell and having only caramelized banana mush to spread, the chocolate ganache behaved itself and turned out perfectly for me.

On a more positive note, my mother was actually excited to try these tartlets because of the amazing smell of the caramelized bananas. When she took a bite, she proclaimed it “sinful” and “delicious”. This is promising. My mother has now approved two Dorie dessert tarts (the other being Dorie’s orange-almond tartlets). And anytime I’ve got a mother-approved recipe, it’s a keeper!

To see how others fared with double chocolate & banana tarts, check out French Fridays with Dorie where we make recipes from Dorie Greenspan’s Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.