I am a huge fan of a pie, any pie and I do try to avoid them because when I do allow myself the pleasure of making or purchasing a pie, I enthusiastically embrace the idea of having it for breakfast lunch and dinner. My favorite pie in the world? hands down Eli’s Apple Pie (from Eli’s/Zabar’s in New York).
Anyway, I digress. It is hard to go wrong with a base covered in luscious caramel, then topped with vanilla infused whipped cream, a layer of thinly sliced banana and then more whipped cream. Delicious!
I have been wanting to make one of these ever since I saw Keira Knightly waving it around as a peace offering in Love Actually. In fact, maybe even before then.
Banoffee Pie is not really Summer fare, I think it may work best after a big Winter roast but it is so good that any dessert minded person won’t care when you serve it, or what it comes after – it is so darn good!
Ingredients
2 x 400g cans of sweetened condensed milk
180g unsalted butter, chopped
375g graham crackers or digestive biscuits
60ml thickened cream
Scraped seeds of 2 vanilla beans
75g icing sugar, sifted
4 bananas
30g dark chocolate, finely chopped
*Start this recipe a day or two ahead*
Place the cans of condensed milk in a large saucepan of water and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 2 hours adding water to ensure cans remain covered by at least 2 inches of liquid. Remove saucepan from heat and allow cans to cool completely before removing them from the water then store in your fridge for a couple of hours or until you are ready to use them (up to 2 weeks).
Melt butter in a small saucepan, and then cool slightly. Crush biscuits/crackers by hand or in a food processor to resemble fine crumbs, add the butter and combine. Press crumb mixture over the base of a greased 28cm loose based tin then refrigerate for 30 minutes to firm the base.
Open the cans of condensed milk and spoon caramel evenly over the biscuit base, cover with cling wrap and refrigerate overnight to firm.
Using an electric mixer whisk the cream, vanilla bean seeds and sugar till stiff peaks form. Cut bananas into thin slices. Remove pie from tin and loosen base and place on a plate. Spoon half the whipped cream over the caramel filling, then place the bananas in an overlapping circle working from the outside in. Top with the remaining cream and sprinkle with chocolate.
Best served immediately.
Yield: Serves 12
Source: adapted from Fratelli Fresh
© 2015, Michelle. All rights reserved.
