Sunday 26th March 2017
Well this week has been exciting, well at least for me, and my flatmates. I have been testing loads of recipes and I actually cannot wait to post all of them. I’m not going to tell you what they are because it will spoil it. But they are so good, like really good and you should all be really excited!
Back to this recipe, banoffee pie. Not the hardest of all desserts but one of the most delicious. I know this little kid who always asks me if I made the banoffee pie that is on offer at church functions. We had one last week and I actually had to say no, I didn’t make it but my mum did. He looked a little sad so I quickly followed it up with ‘but it is the same recipe, so it is just as good’. He seemed happy with that answer but that just reminded me that my banoffee pies are the best. After that, I knew that I had to post this recipe.
I’m not entirely sure where it came from to be honest, as it was something that my parents would always make for any type of gathering, and the recipe has never changed. I like to think that it is a family recipe somehow but banoffee pie isn’t hard to make so I don’t know. The only thing that ever seems to differ between banoffee pies is usually the topping. Some people just leave it as cream, some decorate with more banana, others with some chocolate sauce. We go for crumbled up flake. Again, I have no idea where this came from, but it is definitely the best way to top a banoffee pie as you just get this hint of chocolate when you eat it, but it isn’t the main attraction.
The hardest part of this recipe is waiting for the biscuit base to set. You need to let it set for at least an hour, but a couple of hours is even better, as it becomes stronger and less likely to crumble. After that it is just a simple assembly job and then voila! You are done and it can be served straight away. Oh, the other hardest part is not licking your fingers when you layer it all up. That can always be really hard to resist but it is totally worth it in the end.
I can tell you all that this recipe is going to be super popular with everyone. I don’t think that I have met anyone who doesn’t like this. Apart from one friend but she hates bananas so I don’t think she counts for this. Oh does she? Well that is one person out of who knows how many who have tried this (maybe 100, at least over the years).
Enjoy!
Ingredients:
250g Digestive Biscuits
200g Butter
2 Large Bananas (or 3 Small Bananas)
1 Tin of Carnations Caramel
300ml Double Cream
1 Flake
Method:
- Melt the butter either in a pan over the hob or in the microwave. Whilst the butter is melting, bash up the biscuits in a plastic food bag with a rolling pin until it resembles bread crumbs (you don’t want the biscuit crumbs to be too fine or too chunky). Add the crushed biscuits into the melted butter and mix together so that all the biscuit crumbs are covered in butter.
- Press the biscuit crumb mixture into any tin that you have, making sure that the crumbs are pressed down hard, so that they are packed together. Put this in the fridge for at least an hour, but the longer the better. Tip: To make it easier to get out of the tin later, use a loose bottomed tin.
- Spread the caramel over the buttery biscuit base, ensuring that it is a roughly even layer.
- Slice up the bananas and then layer on top of the caramel. I usually pack the bananas pretty tightly so that everyone can actually taste the banana.
- Whip the cream up so that is resembles soft peaks- the cream should be able to form a peak but then flops down again. Try not to overwhip the cream otherwise it goes grainy. Top the pie with the cream, spreading it gently over the pie.
- Finally, crumble up a flake (best to do this in the packet rather than doing it after you have opened it) and then gently sprinkle it over the top of the pie.