Banoffee Pie
The poms have a lot to answer for apparently, invading half the world, being crap at cricket and Cilla Black, but one thing I will thank my mother land for is banofee pie. This was one of the first ever things my Dad taught me to cook, and it’s still my favourite ever thing to eat, even to the point of serving it at my wedding, but only recently did I discover that it was a very UK specific dish that no where else really knew about.
You Need:
One tin of sweetened condensed milk
A few bananas
Half a pack of Digestive biscuits (or something similar - Digestives here are imported, which means you’re paying around $5 for them, I picked up a similar Australian brand for 85c instead, but Digestives are the way to go)
Three tablespoons of butter
1. Set up a bain-marie and heat the condensed milk for a few hours, there’s no set time, just check it every twenty minutes or so until it goes a deep caramel colour, it took me 2.5 hours tonight, most tins have instructions for this on the back. Make sure you buy full cream milk, skimmed just doesn’t cut it here.
2. Smash and grind the biscuits as fine as possible, add the melted butter and combine until it’s sticky, press it into your dish, this is just a typical cheesecake base, nothing special at all. Place this in the fridge to cool and harden.
3. Once your milk has darkened and become thicker, chop up your banannas, take your toffee off the heat and stir them in. There is a great debate between my father and I between mashed bananas vs. chopped, let me tell you now, chopped is the way to go.
4. Throw it in the fridge for an hour and it’s ready to eat.
Ideally it need to be served with cream just to take the edge off the sweetness of the toffee, but it’s not necessary, it’s beautiful any way it comes.
Edit - The following day: I just went to grab a few spoonfuls of this for breakfast an it occurred to me that I hadn’t mentioned just how short a time you can keep this. Two days is the maximum, unless you want a black pie. If you are desperate to make it in advance then don’t mix it before the last minute, prepare the toffee, and the base and keep them separate in the fridge, then a short while before you want to serve it simple combine it all together and chop the bananas up fresh. TBH, if you’re keeping this in your fridge for two whole days without consuming it in one sitting then I’m of the firm belief that you’re doing something very, very, wrong.
August 26th, 2005 at 11:53 am
Oh man that looks so good. We have a load of bananas at home so maybe I will try this weekend (and eat it all myself because everyone else is on holiday ahahaha).
btw, wtf is a “bain-marie”? Looks like a saucepan to me….
August 26th, 2005 at 1:00 pm
lol, it is just a saucepan, the bottom one is filled with boiling water and the top one has the milk/toffee in it, like how you melt chocolate, if you leave it on the direct heat then it burns, you can buy proper saucepan type things to use but this does the job just as good.
August 26th, 2005 at 6:57 pm
Ahhh, OK I get it. I didn’t realise that there were two saucepans, one inside the other.
October 6th, 2005 at 1:45 pm
I usually heat my condensed milk in the tin in boiling water. You have to let it cool though before opening it and I use philadelfia or marscapone whipped with cream as a topping. It’s more solid-.
I remember the first time I had Banoffe Pie was in Jersey in the Channel Islands. My mother had invited me out to lunch while I was staying with her on holiday. I remember trying to guess how it was made. In the days after I searched for the recipe but alas, it wasn’t as famous as I had imagined and I returned to Italy without it. I should add that I didn’t have a computer in those days.
Anyway I got in touch with friends but no one could help me. Then as luck would have it a friend was going to see her folks in Jerseyand she went with her mother and aunt to the same restaurant and guess what they all ordered for dessert?
After lunch they all trailed into the nearest bookshop and searched for the recipe and believe it or not they found one! But, the book was large and expensive with fabulous photos and they just didn’t want to lash out.
So they trailed into a nearby stationers and bought notebook and pencil and back to the bookshop!
Then it was a matter of copying the recipe while the other two kept a look out for curious shopgirls. To cut a long story short, this is how I came by my first recipe for the fabulous Banoffee Pie
October 9th, 2005 at 9:55 pm
I made Banoffee today. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Good!
Your photos are great!