Bananas Foster Bread with Butter Rum Icing

For the Bananas Foster:

1. In a large saute pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Whisk in the brown sugar until smooth.
2. Add sliced bananas and stir to coat them in the butter-sugar mixture. Cook over medium-high heat for 4-5 minutes until sugar begins to caramelize.
3. Remove pan from heat and add rum. Return to heat. If you have a gas stove, tip the pan slightly to (carefully) ignite the rum. If not, use a long-stemmed lighter. Allow flame to die down. Remove from heat.
4. Let bananas cool slightly, then mash the mixture. Set aside.

For the bread:

1. Preheat oven to 325 F. Grease and flour a 9x5x3 loaf pan.
2. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside.
3. In a separate large bowl, cream together butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add milk and vanilla and mix.
5. Add bananas Foster mixture and mix until well combined.
6. Fold in dry ingredients until just incorporated.
7. Pour mixture into the prepared loaf pan and bake in preheated oven for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean. Remove pan from oven and set it on a rack.
8. Let bread cool completely.
9. Remove bread by inverting the pan and place bread on a large plate. Drizzle butter rum icing over the top. Let icing set for 30 minutes before cutting.

For the butter rum icing:

1. In a small saucepan, combine rum and brown sugar and heat over medium-high heat. Heat for 1-2 minutes, until brown sugar has dissolved.
2. Ignite the rum with the gas stove or a long stemmed lighter (I prefer the lighter because of the high sides of the saucepan). Allow flame to die down.
3. Once the flame has gone out, stir in butter. Remove pan from heat and let the mixture cool for 5-10 minutes.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together rum mixture with powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Use more milk only if needed to get it to drizzling consistency.

Heavily adapted from Food Network’s Banana Bread recipe.