The Decadent Way Gordon Ramsay Turns Banana Pancakes Into A Gourmet Breakfast

Banana pancakes are a fairly easy meal to make at home, as long as you have a strong buttermilk pancake recipe and a few bananas at your disposal. While mashing up the fruit and adding it to your batter is one method, many are also content with placing them on top of their stack. However, to make banana pancakes that are legitimately impressive and luxurious in terms of both taste and presentation, Gordon Ramsay says that caramelizing your bananas is the true key to your success.

In a 2016 video posted to his YouTube channel, Ramsay revealed his banana caramelization method as part of a recipe for small, fluffy, American-style Scotch pancakes. In it, Ramsay made a simple caramel by heating sugar in a hot pan. Once finished, he removed the pan from the heat and added butter and vertically sliced bananas to the mix, giving the fruit a beautiful brown color in the process without sacrificing the texture. This process is similar to the flavor-enhancing step to give bananas before making bread, and the decadent contribution that it gives to both dishes can only be described as absolutely unparalleled.

While you can caramelize bananas with sugar and butter alone, Gordon Ramsay also employs some rum to make them even more delicious. By deglazing the pan with the liquor, you not only add a richer flavor to the bananas themselves, but you also create a decadent syrup to top your pancakes with. To complete the process, Ramsay adds water to the pan to loosen up the thick caramel and rum mixture, creating a smooth syrup that can be drizzled right over the already delicious caramelized bananas.

Beyond that, Ramsay also adds a scoop of vanilla ice cream to the top of his banana pancakes, which is the perfect finishing touch to the dish when you choose one of the best brands of vanilla ice cream. Because of how remarkable this combination is, you may want to pick out some additional ingredients to add to Ramsay's recipe and complement the topping even more. Most notably, pecans and raisins both work great alongside rum due to its warm and sweet taste, while other, more subtle additives like cinnamon or vanilla can also further improve this dish.