Fear not the black banana

I know.....ick, yuck, right? No! What we have here, people is an obvious case of mistaken identity. You may THINK you know what this is, but in all liklihood, you would provide an incorrect guess.

This, my friends, is a roasted banana. It has been heated in its skin in a 400 degree oven (ideally on parchment paper) until the skin turned black and the goodness began to ooze. "Why roast a banana?", you ask. Well, I'll tell you. Roasting a banana increases the brix level or sugar level in the banana. Brix is a measurement of sugar content, and is a term often and also used in wine making.

What I like about roasting bananas is that it adds an additional dimension of banana flavor to desserts. For example, in banana bread, you can use your regular spotted bananas and add some roasted bananas for additional flavor depth. Or put the roasted bananas with the reserved ooze from the parchment paper over a bowl of vanilla ice cream, and them watch 'em start coming to wonder where you are.

Ideally, a banana is roasted just when it starts to "spot". I don't recommend barely ripe (any green on them), or brown and overly spotted. Both of these scenarios produce sub optimal results.

The roasted banana may also be frozen for use at a later date.