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Heston's Banana Eton mess Zoomer icon

Heston's Banana Eton mess

Heston's Banana Eton mess

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Heston's Banana Eton mess

''Though most people associate this very British summer dish with strawberries, there is evidence that it was originally made with bananas or strawberries at the Eton College tuck shop. I love the different textures of the soft banana and cream with crunchy meringue and praline cut with the acidity of limes.'' Heston

  • Vegetarian
Serves:
 8

Ingredients

  • 200g whole blanched hazelnuts
  • 450g unrefined golden caster sugar
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 6 bananas, peeled (plus 2 bananas, peeled, sliced into quarters lengthways and roughly chopped)
  • 25ml Havana Club Especial Rum
  • 25ml lime juice (plus 80ml lime juice for the lime cream and the zest of 2 of the limes), approximately 5 limes in total
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 300ml double cream
  • Tub of 16 Waitrose Mini Meringue Shells, each shell cut into 4 pieces

Method

  1. Place the hazelnuts on a baking tray and put into an oven preheated to 180c, gas mark 4, for 10 minutes.
  2. Next, put 200g of the unrefined golden caster sugar and 75mlwater into a frying pan and place over a medium-high heat until the sugar dissolves and the liquid becomes a dark-brown caramel. Add the toasted hazelnuts and salt to the pan and stir until the nuts are coated, then pour the mixture onto a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. (The caramel is extremely hot, so be careful when pouring.) Allow to cool.
  3. Once cold, wrap the hard caramel in a clean tea towel and bash it with a rolling pin to break it into smaller pieces to create praline pieces. (These will keep in an airtight container for at least 1 month.)
  4. To make the banana purée, put the remaining unrefined caster sugar in a frying pan over a high heat and bubble until golden brown. Once it is caramel in colour, add the whole bananas turning them over in the caramel so they are completely coated, then add the rum to the pan in order to remove the delicious bits from the bottom.
  5. Empty the contents of the pan into the food processor along with ½ tsp of salt and 25ml lime juice, then blitz until smooth. Pour into a container, cover and place in the fridge to cool completely.
  6. To make the lime cream, combine the double cream and lime juice in a bowl and whisk until very soft peaks are formed, being careful not to over-whisk.
  7. Combine approximately 20g of the praline pieces with the banana purée and the lime cream. Gently fold in the chopped fresh banana and the meringue pieces and move the mixture to a serving dish. Garnish with extra praline and then sprinkle the lime zest over the top.

    8. Copyright © Heston Blumenthal 2010

Comments and images

Average user rating 4 stars out of 5

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Nongkrong

Nongkrong 18 October 2010 10:29

This was indeed a mess, and a nasty one at that. Have to confess I only attempted it because my daughter, who was coming to dinner, is a fan of Heston's TV programmes, as I have been in the past...Lesson learned from this particular experience is that we should confine our Heston-worship to the TV, and preferably not the TV in the kitchen. Apart from an interesting moment during the cooking process when the addition of salt (even a lesser amount than the recipe indicated) to the dissolved sugar at step two precipitated the sugar back into a granular form entirely unsuitable for "coating" the hazelnuts... At step four, why it is necessary to "coat" the bananas with caramel before "blitzing them until smooth" in a food processor is beyond me. All this might have been worth it had the final dish turned out, as others have remarked, to resemble the accompanying picture or Heston's quoted description. Sadly, it was revolting.

absinto

absinto 10 September 2010 09:50

This is the perfect recipe to give the servants a really hard workout. I had such fun creating a real mess in the kitchen and then watched happily as every one of my (usually unused) kitchen implements was given its annual scrubbing. Molly and Dolly were quite exhausted at the end of it all (as was I) but they were strangely unappreciative of my efforts to treat them to a delicious dessert.

Jon Lettice

Jon Lettice 04 September 2010 12:18

I showed this recipe to a friend as they often make an Eton Mess and bring the leftovers into work. The one they normally make is delicious. They made this and got a very poor response from their family and work colleagues. Must admit, this was really awful. Bared no resemblance to the picture and just looked like mashed baby food. As many have said, not a very healthy thoughtful offering.

johnny johnson

johnny johnson 26 August 2010 09:32

Oh here we go again - too much fat / sugar etc! I am sorry to have to tell you this, but i found the recipe a bit sloppy. Solution? I simply stirred a 500g block of melted beef dripping through the cream - now that certainly firms things up and adds a delicious lingering flavour.....yum! If you really want to impress the guests, you can't beat crumbling a couple of left over scotch eggs(see earlier recipe) over the top as a garnish - sophistication plus!

Sandy C

Sandy C 23 August 2010 13:38

This was AWFUL! Very fiddly.Puree was very sloppy and the praline very salty.Far easier to just add sliced banana to whipped cream and this would have a better texture too. This was like sloppy baby food and looked like cat sick.

Valban

Valban 21 August 2010 23:39

I made this recipe today and I have to say that the finished product bore no resemblence whatsoever to the picture shown on the recipe card and I have to say did not taste as fabulous as traditional strawberry Eton Mess. Also I fail to understand why we had to purchase 200 grams of hazlenuts only to use (as the recipe instructs) 20 grams once it had been made into praline (another misconception as I would have described it as hazlenut brittle) All in all very disappointed with this recipe.

Lynsey-Jayne

Lynsey-Jayne 21 August 2010 15:19

I haven't made this either...yet. I will give it a go though. For those people above who have only made comment on the "disgraceful" amounts of fat, salt, sugar etc...oh please get a life! No-one is forcing you to make this recipe or, indeed, eat it! There are plenty of other healthy recipes on the Waitrose website for you to try. So, go try them!

N Smith

N Smith 19 August 2010 22:50

My wife meticulously followed the recipe. It was time consuming and complex. Was it worth it? The answer for all our 5 people was an absolutely resounding NO...our adult daughter provided the most straight forward description of the outcome --DISGUSTING. Given we are great fans of Eton Mess, and enjoy all the individual ingredients to this dish, we could not have imagined how badly the dish would turn out. A utter waste of perfectly good ingredients.

PuddingLover74

PuddingLover74 19 August 2010 10:18

I love Eton Mess with strawberries and sometimes I do it with raspberries and mint. I was a bit sceptical about Mr Blumenthal's bananas and lime and rum but I tried it and thought it was brilliant. I know it is full of fat and sugar but aren't all puddings? I had lots of the caramel bits left over and have been putting them on ice cream ever since - beyond yummy!

Ms Domestica

Ms Domestica 19 August 2010 00:19

Unlike most of the Heston card's I've tried this was disappointing. Even though my idea of heaven is a rich cheese cake this was too sweet and too rich. The hazelnut brittle was in itself divine and the way the lime cream cut the banoffee mash was good but it was too sweet and the addition of the meringues took it too far. Perhaps I shouldn't have assembled it before we sat down for the main course but by the time we had dessert the meringue pieces had all melted in and lost their texture. I would be tempted to make it with less toffee going into eh banana mix, no meringues and using more of the fabulous hazelnut toffee.

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Nutritional Info

Typical values per serving:
Energy 692.0kcal
Sugars 91.0g
Fat 34.0g
Saturated Fat 12.4g
Salt 1.6g

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This recipe was first published on Waitrose.com in August 2010