It seems as if everyone is making either banana bread or homemade pasta during these quarantine times, so I decided to make a recipe that combined the two! Banana gnocchi! It is so good!!! The banana dumplings are a little dense and fluffy at the same time and the sauce is so easy and tastes so good! Pairs so well with vanilla ice cream! I highly recommend you try making this, because it also so much fun!!!
I actually got the idea for this recipe while watching South Park with my brother LOL. I was scrolling through instagram and seeing people make gnocchi with cauliflower and spinach. It is traditionally made with potatoes, but can literally be made with ANYTHING!!!! I also had a few overly ripe bananas I had been wanting to use (I have literally made my banana bread recipe so many times!! If you haven't yet you should try it out: https://ananyaselenamunjal.wixsite.com/website/post/goin-bananas-for-banana-bread). This is how I was inspired to make the recipe. Then came on developing it 😅.
Gnocchi is an Italian dumpling. Unlike pasta, gnocchi requires very LITTLE gluten to develop. This is what allows the gnocchi to be pillowy soft. When preparing gnocchi with potatoes or cauliflower, it is easy to get little gluten development, because the majority of the water is removed from the potatoes or cauliflower, which allows for less flour to be used, reducing the interaction between the flour and egg, promoting less gluten development. Bananas, however, are very wet. This wetness when mixed with flour would cause gluten to develop, which we do not want!! To overcome this issue I mixed in cornstarch with the banana mash. This reduces the amount of flour needed and creates interruptions in the gluten networks, allowing for a softer dumpling.
Overall this dessert dish is fun to make and tastes amazing! I would recommend making it as a family activity! Everyone can make their own shapes and have fun with it!
This recipe was so much fun to make! I love thinking through recipes and ways of making them work. It is definitely one of my favorite hobbies and I love hearing from you guys!!! Try it out and let me know what you think!! Make an activity out of this one! You're never too old to play with your food ;)
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