Banoffee Pie

Hi friends! I have now updated the recipe below & added the step by step pics! Enjoy! 🙂

Banoffee pie is the ultimate sweet treat for me…a delicious combination of banana, cream and caramel with a crunchy biscuit base…and its silly easy to make and doesn’t need an oven, just the fridge! What’s not to like???

The only tricky bit is the caramel…now in Seoudi & Oscar and probably Metro supermarkets you can buy ready made jars of Bonne Maman Caramel which is great, tasty and ready to use…but the jar is kind of expensive.

The alternative is to make your own, using a can of sweetened condensed milk like Nestle or Bonny which isn’t difficult, it just needs pre-planning as it takes 3 hours, though you don’t need to do anything during those 3 hours except top up the water on the can.

And actually, making my fourth banoffee pie for the step by step photo’s, I used the condensed milk version of caramel “Dulce de Leche” and honestly, I think its nicer than the ready made caramel. It’s creamier and has a much better consistency so holds itself better both as a filling & topping. In all cases, if you are short of time or just want to whip one up, go for the jar, it’s still really tasty!

Enjoy 🙂

• Servings: 8 to 10
• Time: 30min on & off prep & assembly, 3hr to cook the caramel but its hands-off 🙂
• Difficulty: medium (if you are cooking the caramel)
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Ingredients:

• 300 gms digestive biscuits
• 125 gms melted butter, cooled
• 250 ml whipping cream
• 1 tsp vanilla or 1 pack vanilla sugar
• 2 tbsps icing sugar
• 1 can condensed milk (Bonny or Nestle) OR 1 jar ready made Bonne Maman Caramel
• 3 – 4 ripe medium sized bananas

Equipment you will need:

• 28 cm loose base tart or cake tin
• Big metal spoon or spatula to spread with
• Rolling pin or mixer to crush the biscuits with
• Hand or electric whisk for the cream

Method:

1.  Melt the butter in the microwave in a large plastic bowl (about 1 to 1.5 minutes on medium power – but keep your eye on it!) or in a deep pot on a low heat. Melt but do not color or burn it. Leave to cool a bit.
2. Crush the biscuits till they look like fine sand. Manually: place in a plastic bag, bash with a rolling ping 🙂 gets all that energy out :-). Or just place in a mixer كبه and pulse till ready.
3. Tip the crushed biscuits into the bowl/pot of cooled melted butter and mix with your hand till it feels wet and all the biscuits have soaked up the butter. 

   

   Mixing the melted butter with the finely crushed biscuits

   

   Fully mixed melted butter & finely crushed biscuits

4. Tip the biscuit butter mix into your tin and start spreading it firmly across the base. You want the base layer to be of the same thickness. Press all along the sides of the tin with your finger/thumb to make a smooth edge. 
5. Place it in the fridge to set for 30 minutes.
6. After the base has set, take the tin out of the fridge & tip ¾ of the caramel*** onto the base.
7. Using a large metal spoon or spatula, lightly spread the caramel outward from the center to create a round layer of caramel covering the base. Do not push it all the way to the edge, stop 1 or 2 cm before that. Refrigerate again till you prep your bananas. 
8. Peel the bananas and cut into medium thick slices (3-4 mm). 
9. Get your tin out of the fridge and layer the banana slices from the center outward in a circular pattern so you have a layer of banana covering your caramel. The caramel will be pushed out to the edge of the tin which is fine (If it isn’t, push down on the bananas a bit). Refrigerate till you prep your whipping cream. 
10. Whip the cold cream with the icing sugar & vanilla using either a hand or electric whisk. Whisk till almost stiff peak stage. Don’t over-whip or you will have butter instead of cream!
11. Get your tin out of the fridge and using a large metal spoon, start to spoon half the whipped cream onto the banana layer in blobs, starting from the outside in so you don’t get cream on the sides of the tin. Now with the back of the spoon lightly spread the cream so all the banana is covered. Add extra cream at this point to cover any holes. You don’t want a very thick cream layer and may not need to use all the 250ml of cream at the end. 
12. Decorate and refrigerate. I like to take some of the remaining caramel, heat it in the microwave for 20 seconds to thin it, then using a spoon, make lines on top (check the photo). Just put some caramel in a spoon, keep your hand a few centimeters above the pie and start from the edge dropping the caramel slowly in a steady stream, dragging your hand forward above the cream to create lines. Refill your spoon with more caramel and repeat as needed. A more professional way to make the lines is to spoon some of the remaining caramel into a small plastic bag, push the caramel all the way down to one of the sides and then holding it tightly just above the caramel use it like a piping bag to pipe out the lines. When you are ready to use it, just make a small snip at the bottom with a pair of scissors. 
13. To serve: Steadily place your tin on top of a big lid jar, holding it. Gently from both sides of the tin, push the tin side downward. You can use your hands if you prefer: Slowly but firmly using your hand under the base of the tin, your other hand holding the tin side, push the tin base up through the sides to release the base from the tin. 
14. Gently place the tin base on a serving tray. I have tried before to slide off the biscuit base from the tin base but it always ends up breaking the biscuit base. So just slice gently with a knife so you don’t spoil your tin base hopefully. 

*** To make your own caramel “Dulce de Leche”:

This can be done on the same day or even days before you want to make your banoffee. Its really easy and is lovely and creamy! Check out the Tips & Tricks page for a pic tutorial.

• Take a tin of condensed milk and place in a deep pot, standing or on its side doesn’t matter.
• Fill the pot with water till the can is completely covered by water. Really covered please! It’s very important!
• Take it up to the boil and then leave to boil on a medium low heat for 3 hours.
• Please check every hour or every half hour and top up with more water.
• The can must always be submerged in water or it can explode! That is dangerous and a real real mess to clean up!
• Once the 3 hours are up, take the can out of the water, leave to cool for a few minutes so you can handle it, then open with a can opener and tip the contents which should be a thick deep caramel sauce into a pan (if using on the same day). If you are making this ahead of time just tip into an empty jar and close and place in the fridge till you need it.
• Right before you spread it over the biscuit base, place the pan over a low heat and start to stir till it loosens and becomes thinner and easier to pour and spread over the base.
• If for some reason its too thin, place over a medium low heat and let it simmer while you stir till it thickens more. Keep stirring though so it doesn’t burn – and it will, if left unattended.