Hi Everyone,

Not sure if I am in the right area of finding this out but here goes. I made a Banana Cream filling yesterday and it turned brown. I added to small bananas and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice and it still turned brown. It was still delicious but I would be embarrased to serve it. So today I again mashed 2 small bananas and added 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and the same thing happened. Does anyone have any suggestions? I would love to hear them. This is a great filling and would love to be able to use it. Thanks!

Sandy

I have no idea how this will work in a filling .....

When I set up my chocolate fountain, and one of the foods they select are bananas, I cut them in 1" pieces and give them a 15-20 second "bath" in a bowl of 7-Up right before I set them out on the table. They can sit on the table for 20+ minutes before they even start to turn brown (and with a moving line of people, they rarely last longer than 20 minutes).

I was told it's the lemon/lime/citrus in the 7-Up that does it, without giving them an overpowering lemon taste that pure lemon juice will do.

I macerate bananas in a mixture of 1 cup lemon juice with 2 tbsp sugar dissolved in. According to Alton Brown, you can mash up a chewable vitamin C tablet and use it, but I've never tried it. Mashed bananas will turn brown much faster as the mashing crushes cell walls and increases the surface area that is exposed to oxidation. When I use bananas in a recipe (except in banana bread), I use just ripe ones (all yellow, but no brown spots, a little green still on the stem). They seem to hold up better.

Thank you for the suggestions. I will try the sprit/7-up and I might not mash the bananas but just slice them and put them in between the vanilla cream. Does anyone have a good banana filling recipe they use?

Sandy

For banana filling, I usually make a banana-cream filling. I make a batch of faux Bavarian: 1 cup whole milk + 1 pkg instant pudding mix (usually use vanilla or French vanilla, but for a banana filling, you could use the banana pudding mix), blend until smooth, fold in 1 container Cool Whip. While I am making the faux Bavarian, I macerate 2-3 just barely ripe (all yellow, but no brown spots) bananas, sliced about 1/4-1/2 inch thick in 1 cup lemon juice with 2 tablespoons sugar dissolved in it (this will help delay oxidation of the bananas). Drain the bananas and fold into the faux Bavarian. Cake must be refrigerated. Shelf life when using bananas is extremely short. Even with macerating in lemon juice the max shelf life of this filling is 3 days.