Banana Tarte Tatin

If there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it is that sometimes, despite our best intentions and planning, it is the accidents that are most delicious and most rewarding. Such is the story of the tarte tatin…both versions.  In one version of the story, the chef left the apples cooking in butter and sugar for too long and decided to try to save it by adding pastry dough on top and tossing it in an oven.  In another version, the tart was cooked upside down by mistake. I’m not sure how one can bake a tart upside down by mistake without noticing so I’m going to place my bet on the first theory. Either way, the guests at the Hotel Tatin were pretty happy with the result.

Fast forward 110+ years and I’ve got a book club brunch planned. I’ve been meeting with a group of girls once every month or two for the past few years. Over time we realized that we don’t always read the books we pick and sometimes we don’t spend too much time talking about them.  Nontheless, it’s a great excuse to get together, eat and chat. We each bring a dish, usually inspired by whatever the book selection was. In case you’re wondering, we do sometimes pick the book based on what we feel like cooking. This month, we were planning to have brunch. What better dish to make than individual tarte tatins for a group of sweet girls with an appreciation for life’s accidents. Being in Miami, I figure it would be fun to use bananas instead of apples. I pre-assembled the tartes at home in individual ramekins and then baked them on site. I added a little French vanilla ice cream while they were nice and hot right out of the oven and suddenly, nobody cared that I never found he time to read this month's book!