Banoffee Pie

Banana + Toffee = Banoffee! This is hands down my favorite dessert. And, apparently the invention of this amazing pie took place in the county in England where my mum grew up and where I studied in college.  In fact, the creation of this pie was at The Hungry Monk pub in Jevington, East Sussex, England, where I would often go to study in the evening.

Some American-ized versions of this dessert use ginger snaps or graham crackers for the crust, but it really needs to be made with McVitie's Digestive biscuits to get the nice salty crust to balance out the sweetness of the bananas, toffee cream, whipping cream and chocolate. And, for the chocolate, I insist on using Cadbury's Flakes to sprinkle on top.

I recently made it and just used the Carnation recipe as you need to use sweetened condensed milk to make the caramel/toffee mixture.

Banoffee Pie

I discovered banoffee pie in England on a visit to see my family. One of my cousins made this and I fell in love. What is "banoffee" you ask? Well, pretty simple...Banana + Toffee = Banoffee.  It's a pie with a yummy crust made with the English Digestive biscuits, a layer of creamy toffee made with condensed milk, a layer of fresh bananas, a layer of whipped cream and sprinkled with chocolate.

It had been years since I'd tasted this banana toffee concoction until we tried it at a restaurant in the U.S. recently. So, I thought I'd try to make it myself and here was my go at it.

I made the digestive biscuit crust and pressed it into a tart pan with a removable bottom and it didn't turn out too bad.  My failure was in the toffee. It did burn on the bottom of the pan just a tad and didn't seem to set too well.  It did taste good, but I need to try again on this.

Banana layer...easy. Just slice and arrange on top of the toffee. 

The whipped cream layer was quite easy as well.  However, please do not use Cool Whip or any prepared whipped cream of the like. I typically always make whipped cream from heavy whipping cream for any use, but especially for this. 

The final product was quite nice and I'll just have to try again (and enjoy again) to work on the toffee. I referenced a few recipes for this, including one posted on Nigella Lawson's site, but I tried a different method to make the toffee that didn't involve simply boiling the cans of condensed milk so I'll try that next time if I have 2 1/2 hours on my hands, which is rare.