Recipe – Banoffee Pie

“This is the recipe for banoffee pie prepared by Caroline Cardoz for our Easter lunch”

Banoffee pie is an English desert pie made from bananas and toffee (dulce de leche) either on a pastry base or crushed biscuits and butter. I have adopted my recipe from Sprinklebakes.com and Nigella.com. When I tried it earlier I topped the bananas over the caramel and the result was not as tasty as the way she does it at sprinklebakes. Also it can be done in a springform pan but I prefer doing it in a rectangular pie dish. Either way it is quite an easy recipe to prepare!

Bottom layer:

• 400g Digestive biscuits (I used about ¾ packet; you can use less)
• 8 tbsp butter melted
• ¼ tsp cinnamon powder
• If you use unsalted butter add ¼ tsp salt

Caramel layer:

• 2 tins condensed milk (400g tin)

Filling:

• 4 to 6 bananas (normal long variety)
• 2 tsps lemon juice
• 1 tbsp castor sugar

Topping:

• 2 – 3 cups whipped topping or whipped cream
• Chocolate curls or shavings

Preparation:

Crush digestive biscuits with a rolling pin. Add melted butter and cinnamon powder and mix thoroughly. Grease a rectangular Pyrex dish with butter. Add the crumbed mixture to the dish and line the bottom and sides of the dish. Put it into the freezer and chill for about 15 mins till nice and firm.

For the caramel layer, take two unopened cans of condensed milk and keep in a huge vessel. Add water and cover the cans. Let the cans boil in the vessel on a medium heat for about 1 ½ hours. Make sure the cans are covered with water at all times. Keep adding water to the vessel to make sure the cans are covered. After the required time, remove the vessel from the fire and let it cool completely. Open the cans, the condensed milk will be nice and caramelly. This can be done a few days before you make the pie. Stays well outside the fridge.

Slice the bananas into rounds, not too thin and toss lemon juice so that they do not discolour. Add some castor sugar and mix gently. Keep aside.

Beat the whipped cream till soft peaks form. Grate chocolate curls.

Assembly:

Remove the Pyrex dish from the freezer. Layer all the bananas over the crumbed mixture. /use all the bananas. Place dollops of caramel over the bananas to make the filling. Cover the bananas completely. I used about 1 and ¾ can of the caramel. I used the rest of the caramel for breakfast as a topping for pancakes. Yummy! Add dollops of whipped cream over the caramel. Cover completely. Sprinkle shavings or curls of chocolate over the whipped cream.

Keep it in the fridge till ready to serve. Tastes better after about 2 hours.

Enjoy!