Flambé

Dylan Higgins & Bella Echevarria

For our final project, we chose to explore the chemical process and effects of flambé. Flambé is a cooking procedure that was first discovered in Monte Carlo in 1895 when a waiter named Henri Charpentier accidentally set fire to a pan of crepes. In fact, flambé means "flamed" in French. However, simply lighting food on fire is not flambéing in and of itself. Flambé implies that alcohol is added to a hot pan and burned off to create a burst of flames. Although flambé is sometimes only  associated with table side presentation, the process is actually a complex chemical reaction that enhances the aroma and flavor of the dish. 

For example, the dish that we prepared banana's foster. Our recipe for banana's foster consisted of butter, brown sugar, banana liqueur, bananas, dark rum, and cinnamon and served over vanilla ice cream. Because some of our bananas were still very green, we put them in a paper bag overnight to speed up the ripening process. The bag retains the ripening agent of ethylene gas which bananas naturally release. In the final steps of preparing the banana's foster, we pour banana liqueur and dark rum over the caramelizing bananas. Carmelization is the browning of sugar in which the volatile chemicals are released to produce a caramel flavor. By heating the alcohol, the vapor pressure increases, releasing enough vapors to catch fire from the lighter. The ignition of the flame evaporates the alcohol and helps the flavor of the liqueur to blend into the bananas. The term "flash point" represents the lowest temperature at which the liquid, in this case the banana liqueur and the dark rum, gives off enough vapor to ignite on exposure to a flame. The flammable ingredient in the alcohol is ethanol, which has a flash point of 55 degrees Fahrenheit. To make the flame spark, we added a pinch of cinnamon. Cinnamon is made from dried bark, making it very flammable. 

After a few trials, we believe we mastered the process and flare of creating banana's foster.