I decided to experiment with making some baked plantains since I got some local ones here in Bermuda.
Plantains look like bananas, but they aren’t the same. When you buy them green, they’re starchy rather than sweet and people cook them like a vegetable.
Baked Plantains With Spices And Maple Syrup
Prep time:
Cook Time:
Time from start to eating:
Makes 2 servings
Once they turn yellow, they’re starting to get some sugars, but not nearly the same as what a banana would be at that ripeness level.
I wanted to make some savory baked plantain chips with them, but when I read up on how to cook them it said that the plantains have to be still green for that to work.
The other option I found was to wait until the plantains get fully black on the outside, which is when they’ve actually developed some sugar, and then you can make sweet baked plantains.
I decided to try the sweet option, because my plantains were already yellow when I bought them, and topped them with lots of spices and a drizzle of maple syrup.
Even though it was an experiment, I was really pleased with the results. You could do the same thing with bananas if you can’t find plantains…
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Ingredients
- 2 plantains, ripened until the skin is black
- pinch cinnamon
- pinch ginger
- pinch nutmeg
- pinch allspice
- pinch cardamom
- 1 Tbsp (approx) maple syrup
Directions
- Heat your oven or toaster oven to 350 degrees F.
- Peel and slice the plantains, laying them on a baking sheet. I lined mine with parchment because I didn’t want the plantains taking up any flavors from the sheet and I didn’t want to have to scrub off baked maple syrup.
- Sprinkle the slices with as much of the spices as you like – I did a light dusting of each. Then drizzle the maple syrup on top and put the sheet in the oven. I also mixed the spices with the syrup a bit, to make sure they got moistened.
- Let the plantains cook until they’re soft and warmed through. They would be excellent on top of some frozen banana ice cream…
