Banoffee Pie Recipe

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Ingredients

• 9oz (250g) gingernut (or digestive) biscuits / or graham cracker shell

• 10oz (275g) butter

• 1 tin (400g) sweetened condensed milk

• 6oz (175g) caster sugar

• 1/4 pint (150ml) double cream

• 2 bananas

Procedure

To make the base, crush the biscuits into crumbs with the end of a rolling pin -- this is best done inside a freezer bag to avoid spillage and loss. Melt two-fifths of the butter (about 4oz) in a large saucepan. Once melted, take off the heat add mix in the biscuit crumbs. Press into the bottom of an 8-inch (20cm) loose-bottomed tin, and transfer to a fridge to chill.

For the filling, place the remaining butter with the sugar into a medium-sized saucepan (ideally non-stick if you don't like dish washing) and melt over a medium heat, stirring until the butter has melted, and sugar is just starting to melt. Add the condensed milk and bring to the boil, stirring continuously for 5 minutes to make your caramel.

To assemble, chop the bananas into slices, arrange over the base, and pour the caramel over the top, before returning to chill for at least an hour for the caramel to firm.

Prior to serving, whip the cream, and spoon over the top, optionally with some grated chocolate, or garnish with Cape gooseberries.

Warnings

One pie may not be enough... If there are children present, it is practically impossible to keep them from licking the contents of the condensed milk tin! Be careful of the edges.

History

Credit for the cake's invention is claimed by Val Hargreaves at The Hungry Monk restaurant in Jevington, East Sussex. They developed the dessert in 1972, having been inspired by an American dish known as "Blum's Coffee Toffee Pie", which consisted of smooth toffee topped with coffee-flavoured whipped cream. Dowding adapted the recipe to instead use the type of soft caramel toffee created by boiling a can of condensed milk, and worked with Mackenzie to add a layer of bananas. They called the dish "Banoffi" and it was an immediate success, proving so popular with their customers that they "couldn't take it off" the menu.

The recipe was adopted by other restaurants, and was reported on menus in Australia and America. In 1994, a number of supermarkets began selling it as an American pie, leading Nigel Mackenzie to offer a £10,000 prize to anyone who could disprove their claim by finding any published pre 1972 recipe for the Pie. Mackenzie erected a blue plaque on the front of The Hungry Monk confirming it as the birthplace of the world's favourite pudding.

The recipe was published in The Deeper Secrets of the Hungry Monk in 1974 (now out of print), and reprinted in the Hungry Monk's later cookbook In Heaven with the Hungry Monk (1997). Ian Dowding has since put his original recipe online because he is "pedantic about the correct version", and stated that his "pet hates are biscuit crumb bases and that horrible cream in aerosols". The recipe for the dish is often printed on the tins of Nestle's condensed milk without acknowledgement of the source.

The word "Banoffee" has entered the English language and is used to describe any food or product that tastes or smells of banana and toffee ".

Banoffee pie in India

Banoffee pie is a very popular dessert on the backpacker trail in India, thought possibly to have arrived as early as 1978 or 1979 with the influx of young westerners to the region, who shared their favourite comfort food recipes with the local restaurateurs who catered to them. The banoffee pie is a fixture in most budget and tourist towns from McLeod Ganj in the northern Indian state of Himachel Pradesh to the resorts of Goa.

You may also want to research:

Pies / Pie recipes / English Cuisine / British desserts / Sweet pies / Cold pies /

External links, References & Resources:

• "The Free Dictionary Online". Farlax. Retrieved 2011-09-13.

• "The Completely True and Utter Story of Banoffi Pie". Ian Dowding. Retrieved 2009-06-21.

• "Daily Telegraph article about Banoffee Pie reward". Banoffee.co.uk. 1994-05-05. Retrieved 2009-06-21.

• R.Maclean. Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India. 2006. Viking.

• This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses some material from Wikipedia/article © / and other related pages.

• Top photo credit: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.