Sweet Saturday - Banoffi Pie

Banoffi Pie


The first time I tasted this dessert was in Ireland. I lived there for 3 years and Banoffi Pie is one of the things I will always associate with my time there. Whenever I go back and I see Banoffi Pie on the menu I get one.


This is the first time I made it myself at home. I found the original recipe here: http://www.hungrymonk.co.uk/pages/banoffi.htm. Sometimes you find it spelled Banoffy or very often Banoffee (I guess the bananas and toffee (or coffee) in the recipe made people think it was spelled this way.


I have made my own variation, using other receipies I found as inspiration. Most of these other recipes have an easier base, using biscuits instead of a base you have to bake first. I decided to try 3 types of biscuits for the base. Shortbread, Digistives and very low countries, good old speculaas.


Ingredients

• 100 gr of melted butter
• 250 gr of crunched biscuits
• 1 can of condensed milk
• 2 table spoons of (brown) sugar
• 1 table spoon of butter
• pecan nuts
• 3 bananas
• 375ml cream
• sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon instant coffee (optional)
• chocolate to grate (optional)

In a lot of recipes you boil the can of condensed milk for at least 3 hours, keeping it submerged all the time. Once cooled you open the can and caramel comes out. Check the can every so often that it is still submerged!

While this boils you can crunch the 250 gr biscuits till the size of bead crumbs and mix with 100gr of melted butter. Put on a base, press it well and leave to cool in the fridge for 1 hour. I wrapped the base in cling-film first.  In this case I had the base divided in 3 one section for each type of biscuit I used.

The boiling of the can did not work for me, I probable have been to careful and let it simmer rather than boil. So instead I put the condensed milk than I  a pot adding 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of butter. Bring to the boil and stir, stir, stir until it thickens and smells of caramel Leave to cool and keep stirring. Than spread the mixture over the biscuit base. I put of circle of pecan-nuts around the perimeter of the base. I let this cool more while I whipped the cream (with sugar to taste and the instant coffee). 

Slice the bananas and divide over the base, top with the cream (has a nice soft caramel color from the added instant coffee) and grate some dark chocolate on top of it.

Enjoy!

PS All bases are equally nice, the speculaas works well too :-)