Bananas Foster Sauce

A few months ago my husband and I went to IHOP (I seriously typed it iHop at first, apparently I have an Apple addiction...). They had a new menu item I couldn't resist - Bananas Foster Brioche French Toast. My mouth was just watering reading the description, so I decided to forgo the multigrain pancakes this once and try them. As soon as I took my first bite, I knew I was in trouble. Suddenly I was very glad we don't live near an IHOP, this french toast would just be too hard to pass up. Even after I found out how many calories were in this dish (don't look it up, it will just depress you), I was still craving the rich and creamy sauce on the toast.

We were telling my in-laws about it, and my mother-in-law mentioned she had a bananas foster sauce recipe from The Pioneer Woman. Yeah I know, my list of her recipes here on the blog is getting a little out of hand. I'm a huge fan and her recipes are some of the best I've tried. The sauce can be used in so many different ways - ice cream, cake, french toast, pancakes, etc. My favorite way to eat it was as a banana split! The original recipe called for bananas cooked in the sauce (we also omitted nuts), but we liked it better adding the bananas after we cooked the sauce. I think we cooked it to long, or something, the first time the bananas got soggy and didn't hold up well in the sauce.

Here's how we made the amazing sauce!!

Bananas Foster sauce ingredients:

• 1 stick butter (salted)
• 1 cup dark brown sugar (packed)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup dark rum
• dash of cinnamon
• 2 whole bananas - chopped up to place in sauce, or whole bananas for banana splits

Bananas Foster sauce:

• Melt butter in a medium size sauce pan over medium-high heat

• Once melted, mix in the brown sugar and stir in

• Stir in the heavy cream

• Pour in the rum and stir. CAREFULLY tip the pan over the open burner to ignite the alcohol, or use a long, click grill lighter if you don't have a gas oven.

One thing to note - be very careful if you choose to light the rum on fire, you don't have to. Also, you really don't have to use the rum. My sister-in-law wasn't a huge fan of the sauce because she thought the rum taste was too strong. So if you are unsure, maybe go a little lighter on the rum. Personally, I thought the taste was decadent and the perfect blend of flavors. Our sauce was a little less alcohol tasting, though, when we got it to light.

Enjoy!!