Banoffee Pie

I first heard about Banoffee Pie from my blog friend over in Wales, Afrobev. He's since stopped blogging but his legacy of his love for Banoffee Pie lives on in this post. This dessert is definitely as decadent as it looks and sounds from the ingredients. There are a couple of main variations as to how it's made, mainly to do with the caramel. Some recipes call for boiling a whole can of unopened condensed milk for a couple of hours. However, being the lazy person that I am, I took the easier option to make the caramel. I boiled my condensed milk with butter and sugar and I found the results very nice still.

I used oatmeal biscuits for the base and they worked really well. The oatmeal gave it a nice crunch and my work mates thought it was nuts that I put in the base. I also added some nuts over the top, which wasn't in the recipe originally. I find that nuts and banana go so well together, so sprinkled about half a cup of crushed cashew nuts.





Banoffee Pie

For the base:
100g butter, melted
250g oatmeal biscuits

For the caramel:
100g butter
100g dark brown soft sugar
397g can condensed milk

Topping:
4 small bananas
284ml thickened cream, lightly whipped
cocoa powder, for dusting
1/2 cup chopped cashew nuts for sprinkling

You will also need:
20cm spring form cake tin, greased and based lined

To make the base, crush the biscuits until as finely crumb as you like, then tip into a bowl. Stir in the melted butter. Press the mixture into the base and 4cm up the sides of the tin. Chill the base while you make the filling.

To make the filling: place the butter and sugar into a non-stick saucepan over a low heat, stirring until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves. Add the condensed milk and bring gently to the boil, stirring continuously to make the caramel. As soon as it thickens, remove from the heat. Spread the filling over the biscuit base, cool, and then leave to chill for about 1 hour, until firm.

To serve, remove the pie from the tin and place on a serving plate. Slice the bananas; fold half of them into the softly whipped cream and spoon over the toffee base. Decorate with the remaining bananas and sprinkle with crushed nuts. Dust liberally with the cocoa.