Food: Go Bananas For A Barbecue Dessert

Aug 3 2008 Michael Kilkie

Most of us only think about the savoury delights we can cook over the burning embers of a barbecue but there are also great sweet ways to finish your meal.

Most of them involve pieces of fruit which cook beautifully, their natural sugars rising to the surface and caramelising to sweeten them.

The best dessert to cook on a barbecue is fruit kebabs served with chocolate sauce.

My recipe today uses bananas and there are various ways to cook them.

You can simply place the whole banana - skin and all - on the barbecue until the outside is blackened.

Carefully peel back the skin to expose a lovely soft, sweet banana which tastes great with vanilla ice cream.

But for today's recipe, remove the bananas from their skin and wrap them in tinfoil with a few other ingredients before cooking.

This is one of the easiest and tastiest desserts you can make on the barbecue because there is no need for fancy sauces.

Simply use chunks of fudge - which begin to melt in the heat to give an instant butterscotch sauce for the bananas - and a splash of rum. Rum and bananas is a flavour match made in heaven.

Make sure you seal the foil tightly to keep the juices and sauce that form inside the parcel.

You can use this method for baking bananas with lots of different ingredients. The simplest dish is made by adding pieces of butter and sprinkling brown sugar over the bananas. These are the basic ingredients for a toffee sauce which will begin to form as the bananas bake.

Add a splash of whatever liqueur you fancy. Malibu makes an interesting combination with the bananas. But you can change the liqueur or leave it out in my recipe.

The bananas only take about eight minutes to cook, depending on the heat of the barbecue.

Check them after five minutes as you need to keep their shape a little or you'll end up with a pile of mush.

Be careful when opening the parcel as the contents will be roasting hot.

BARBECUED RUM AND FUDGE BANANAS

Serves 6

6 large bananas peeled and halved lengthways

24 chunks quality fudge

6tbsp rum

2tbsp butter

Ice cream

METHOD

Cut out six large squares of kitchen foil and place two banana halves, cut side up, on each. Crumble the fudge equally over each parcel of bananas then drizzle a tablespoon of rum over each one. Seal each parcel well. Place on the barbecue and cook for between five and eight minutes. Open the parcel carefully and serve with a scoop of ice cream.