Choco banana is a peeled banana skewered on a stick, dipped in melted chocolate, and finished with colored sprinkles or other toppings before the coating sets firm. It is one of the standard sweets of the Japanese festival food-stall (yatai), sold alongside candy apples and shaved ice, and is eaten cold off the stick. Modern stalls decorate them elaborately with colored chocolate, candy eyes, and chopped nuts, turning the plain dipped banana into a brightly painted festival novelty.
The chocolate-dipped festival banana is a relatively recent invention, generally credited to Fumio Kobayashi of the confectioner Sakakiya in Oyama, Tochigi Prefecture, who is said to have devised it around 1970. Bananas were still a comparatively expensive imported fruit in postwar Japan, and coating one in chocolate — then a popular treat — and selling it from festival stalls proved an immediate hit, after which the choco banana spread to yatai nationwide. Kobayashi has since been nicknamed the 'Edison of festival-food' for the stall snacks he developed.
A clean snap of set chocolate gives way to cool, soft banana — the contrast of crisp shell and yielding fruit is the whole point. The chocolate should be set firm but thin; too thick a shell overwhelms the banana, and a banana coated while wet or over-ripe leaves the chocolate sliding off in a soft smear. The sprinkles add crunch and color but little flavor.
The trick is temperature and a dry surface. Melted chocolate must coat a chilled, dry banana so it sets quickly into a thin, even shell on contact; surface moisture or a warm banana keeps the coating from setting and makes it slide. Chilling the banana before dipping, and again after, firms the fruit and snaps the chocolate. Sprinkles and decorations are pressed on at once, in the few seconds before the shell hardens and they can no longer adhere. Because the banana itself is uncooked, the whole sweet is really an exercise in coating and setting rather than cooking.
Variations
White and strawberry-pink chocolate, and colored candy coatings, give the rainbow versions seen at modern festivals, often decorated with drawn faces and candy eyes. The same dip-and-set method is applied to other skewered fruit — choco-marshmallow and chocolate-coated strawberries appear at the same stalls — and the technique is a close cousin of the American chocolate-dipped frozen banana, though the Japanese festival form is served chilled rather than frozen.
On the Palate
Where Choco Banana sits in the Japanese flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
7 steps · 15 min active + 15 min waiting
- 14 min
Peel firm, just-ripe bananas and cut in half crosswise if long; push a wooden stick firmly into the cut end of each.
- 210 min
Chill the skewered bananas in the freezer for about ten minutes so the fruit firms and the surface is cold and dry.
Watch outFreeze the skewered banana about ten minutes until firm and its surface is cold and dry — a warm or damp banana keeps the chocolate from setting and it slides off.
- 34 min
Melt chocolate gently over a water bath or in short bursts, stirring until smooth and fluid.
- 43 min
Hold each banana over the bowl and spoon or dip on a thin, even coat of chocolate, letting the excess drip off.
- 51 min
Immediately scatter sprinkles or press on decorations before the coating begins to set.
Watch outScatter the sprinkles on at once, in the few seconds before the shell hardens — a moment late and they won't stick.
- 66 min
Stand or lay the bananas on parchment and chill briefly until the chocolate is firm to the touch.
- 71 min
Serve cold, on the stick.
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