Banoffee pie or others spell it as banoffy or even banoffi is a pastry desert that’s made from cream, banana, toffee and boiled sweetened milk or also called as dulce de leche that is either put in a pastry base or with one that’s from crumbled biscuits with butter. Other versions of the pie have a mixture of coffee and/or some chocolates. Banoffee is a name given as mixture of banana & toffee.
History
Ian Downing & Nigel Mackenzie are credited for the invention of this delicious cake from Hungry Monk Restaurant of Jevington,East Sussex. The dessert was developed back in 1972 as inspired from another type of pie the Blum’s coffee toffee pie which is another favorite American dish. This pie is made with coffee whipped create and toffee. Dowding followed the recipe but instead used some soft caramel toffee by boiling the sweetened or condensed milk while Mackenzie added the banana layer. They then called this dish as Banoffi and became quite a success that customers don’t want them to take it out of their restaurant menu.
Other restaurants then adopted the recipe and had been served inAmericaand even inAustralia. In 1994 many supermarkets began selling it as American Pie that led to Nigel Mackenzie to be offering £10,000 as prize money for anyone that could prove the pie had any recipe published of the pie before 1972. He then put up a blue plaque just outside of the Hungry Monk restaurant marking it as the birthplace of Banoffee pudding.
The recipe for this pie was published in 1974 entitled The Deeper Secrets of the Hungry Monk but it’s now not on print and in 1997 they reprinted it as the In Heaven with the Hungry Monk. Ian Dowding then decided to publish the original recipe to the internet as what he described himself to be pedantic regarding the correct version of it and saying that his pet hates the biscuit crumbs used as base and the cream from aerosols. In fact, Nestle’s condensed milk would often print the recipe on their tins without an acknowledgement as to who created that recipe.
Banoffee is now part of the English language as the word describing a product or food that smells like Bananas with toffee.
Here are the ingredients:
This serves up to 12
Toffee sauce
- 1 can of condensed milk
For the base:
- 150 grams of melted butter
- 350 grams of biscuits or digestives
- 1 pot of the double cream
- 3 slices bananas
You can also add some instant coffee but this is optional
How to prepare
Preparation takes an hour while it cooks for 2 hours
First make your toffee sauce by immersing the condensed milk tin (without the label) to a boiling water and boil it for about 2 to 3 hours depending on how dark and thick you want it to be. Don’t forget that the tin has to be completely immersed in hot water to avoid an explosion.
Base- crush the biscuits or digestives and add butter then mix. Press it onto a pan and avoid leaving any holes behind. Chill the base.
For the cream, make sure you whip it so it gets to be stiff.
You can arrange it in 3 ways.
For the simple arrangement, mix the toffee & banana and pour it on your base then sprinkle the coffee on top then spread the whipped cream.
Layering: You can also first spread the cream on the base then sprinkle with some coffee then add the bananas and arrange properly then add the toffee, spread then repeat the procedure.
Layering number 2: on the base spread the whipped cream then arrange the bananas then add some more cream on top of the bananas before sprinkling it with some coffee then drizzle the toffee on top.
As a tip:
It is suggested that you use a loose bottomed or spring form cake tin. If you don’t have that, you can line the tin with a parchment paper or cling film so when you are about to lift the pie out it would be much easier and you won’t ruin the pie by breaking it.