By
Diego Cortés
Banana carlota is a chilled layered dessert: champagne biscuits soaked in milk, sliced banana and custard, crowned with a Swiss meringue that gets browned at the end. The base is never baked; the oven only comes in for a couple of minutes, or not at all if you use a blowtorch.
The name comes from the French charlotte, the biscuit-lined tart filled with cream or fruit and served cold. In Latin America it settled into champagne biscuits and homemade custard, and that is how it shows up at birthdays, Sunday lunches and afternoon tea. It is a tray dessert, cut into squares, and it feeds eight without any fuss.
If you want the custard from scratch, this pastry cream can be made a day ahead, and the Swiss meringue has its own page with the temperatures. Another biscuit layer that works beautifully is tiramisu, and for banana without biscuits, this banana custard goes in the oven.
Prep
40 min
Cook
20 min
Servings
8
Calories
400 kcal
Whisk the 4 yolks with the 120 g of sugar until pale and ribbon-like, about 3 minutes, then sift in the cornstarch and whisk until no lumps remain.
Heat the 500 ml of milk with the vanilla and the lemon peel over medium heat until it starts to steam, without letting it boil.
Pour a third of the hot milk over the yolks in a thin stream, whisking constantly, then return the whole mixture to the pan.
Cook over medium-low heat, stirring with the whisk in a zigzag across the bottom, for 6 to 8 minutes, until the custard boils and thickens; remove the lemon peel.
Pour the custard into a wide dish, cover it directly with cling film and let it cool for 20 minutes, stirring once halfway so no skin forms.
Peel the bananas and slice them 1 cm thick right before assembling, as they brown quickly.
Soak the biscuits in the 150 ml of cold milk for just 2 seconds per side and drain them: any longer and they fall apart and the carlota turns mushy.
In a 20 x 20 cm dish, layer the biscuits, then the banana, then the custard; repeat twice more and finish with custard, using three biscuit layers in total.
Cover the dish and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight, until the biscuits soften and the dessert sets.
For the meringue, put the egg whites and the 180 g of sugar in a bowl over barely simmering water, without the bowl touching it, and stir for 3 to 4 minutes until the sugar dissolves and the mixture reaches 60 to 65 °C.
Take the bowl off the heat and whisk for 6 to 8 minutes until you have firm, glossy peaks, adding the lemon juice and the pinch of salt in the final minute.
Spread the meringue over the carlota, make peaks with the spatula, brown it with a blowtorch or under the oven grill at 220 °C for 5 to 8 minutes, and let it rest for 15 minutes in the fridge before slicing with a wet knife.
This recipe has a medium difficulty level, which means it's accessible for cooks of all levels.
The preparation time is 40 minutes and the cooking time is 20 minutes.
This recipe is designed for 8 servings.
Yes, many ingredients can be substituted with similar alternatives. We recommend checking the recipe variations.
Store the preparation in the refrigerator for up to 3 days in an airtight container. Some preparations can be frozen for up to 3 months.
