Cake and Eat It: Banana fritters with sesame caramel

This week’s recipe features soft, squidgy chunks of banana deep-fried in crunchy batter and served with a golden swirl of sesame caramel. It’s not a pudding you’ll find offered much in China, but it’s a staple of the Anglo-Cantonese take-aways that opened up across the UK in the 1950s and 1960s.

These take-away restaurants were set up by immigrants who were mostly from Hong Kong. They simplified the Cantonese dishes of their homeland and adapted them to suit our notoriously sweet palate. As well as sweetening and saucing up their recipes, the take-away owners also needed to adapt their cuisine to fit the ‘starter, main and pudding’ pattern of British dining.

Dessert isn’t a regular part of a meal in China, but a bit of creativity meant British diners could finish their Chinese banquet with banana or pineapple fritters, often dipped in syrup to give them a crisp, glossy finish. So, while they may not be authentically Chinese, banana fritters are a well-loved part of eating out in Britain.

And why not? The combination of hot, crunchy batter giving way to sweet banana is delicious – especially with a scoop of slowly melting vanilla ice cream.

These fritters are actually very quick to make at home. If you have a deep-fat fryer, heat it to 180°C/350°F to cook the fritters. If you’re heating oil in a saucepan (which I did), be careful with it. You can use a thermometer to check when the oil has reached the right temperature, or use the old-fashioned trick of dropping a cube of white bread in to see if it browns and sizzles.

Don’t leave the pan untended while you’re cooking, don’t drop anything into the oil (being splashed with hot oil is no fun), don’t let water get near it, and as soon as you’ve finished cooking, remove the oil from the heat and leave it somewhere safe to cool down.

These fritters are best eaten as soon after cooking as possible. Keep them warm in a low oven while you quickly make the caramel – it’s easy to burn, so keep your eyes fixed on the pan while the sugar browns. The warm fritters, hot caramel and a scoop of ice-cold ice cream make the perfect end to a Chinese New Year feast. Gung Hei Fat Choi!

Banana fritters with sesame caramel

5 minutes to prepare, 15 minutes to cook

Serves 4

Cook’s note: Suitable for vegetarians

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

225ml sparkling water

4 bananas, peeled and sliced into 5-6 chunks each

Sunflower oil, for deep-fat frying

50g caster sugar

1 tbsp sesame seeds

Vanilla ice cream, to serve

Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl, then whisk in the sparkling water to make a smooth batter. Stir in the bananas to completely coat them.

Pour enough sunflower oil into a medium-sized pan to half fill it and heat until a small chunk of bread dropped into it sizzles and begins to brown.

Carefully lower in 4-5 chunks of banana (don’t crowd the pan) and deep-fry for 1-2 minutes, until golden brown. Lift out of the fat with a heatproof slotted spoon and drain on kitchen towel. Repeat with the remaining bananas until they are all cooked. Keep warm in a low oven.

Place the caster sugar, sesame seeds and 50ml cold water in a deep, heavy-based frying pan and heat, swirling the pan occasionally but not stirring the sugar, over a medium heat until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and cook for 1-2 minutes, swirling the pan frequently, or until the caramel is golden. Immediately remove from the heat.

Divide the banana fritters between 4 warm plates and serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a drizzle of the sesame caramel sauce.