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.

German Chocolate Cake

German chocolate cake is my dad's favorite dessert.  So, when he visited for Thanksgiving, this had to be on the menu -- along with pumpkin and apple pie, of course. I researched a lot of recipes and ended up using the recipe from Tastes Better From Scratch. It does taste better than any other German chocolate cake I have ever had and this was confirmed by my dad who has tasted for more variations of this cake than I.

First I baked the chocolate cakes in spring form pans and then made the chocolate frosting. I just put chocolate frosting between the layers, but in the future I will try using the pecan coconut frosting in the middle in addition to the top as I had extra (and it's SOOOOOO good).

This chocolate frosting recipe was so nice and smooth. 

The pecan coconut frosting came together nicely. I thought it was going to be too runny at first, but it thickened nicely when it cooled down. 

I put the chocolate frosting between the layers and on the outside. I spread the pecan coconut frosting on top and then used the extra to pipe a little design around the sides.  

I typically do not like chocolate cake as it's drier than other cakes, but this cake was moist and flavorful. It was unlike any other chocolate cake recipe I have tried.