Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Banoffee Pie

Banana + Toffee pie…English, rich creamy and utterly decadent. The essential ingredients of a banoffee pie are a pastry base (a biscuit base or a pastry crust), cream, banana, and toffee. This pie was invented in a restaurant called Hungry Monk in West Sussex. The original recipe is as follows

http://www.hungrymonk.co.uk/banoffi_pie/

First of all, the base. There are a couple of alternatives here. A graham biscuit crust, a digestive biscuit crust, or a pie crust. For a nine inch pie, that would be 9 graham crackers, 4 tbsp. butter and 2 tsp. sugar turned into a crumb base and baked for 15 minutes. The original recipe uses a shortbread pastry crust.

Then, the toffee. I thought the toffee part is daunting where you boil a tin of condensed milk in water for two and a half hour and you have to make sure that the tin of milk is always covered by water. That was too much of a hassle, like thinking about the milk for two and a half hour! So at the local store I found a 14 oz. tin of dulce de leche in the Mexican food aisle. There are other ways to caramelize condensed milk. Other ways include baking the condense milk in a water bath for 1 and ½ hours. On the other hand, here is Curtis Stone’s recipe, where you make a toffee and add condensed milk.

To make the toffee sauce: Place a medium-heavy saucepan over medium heat. Combine the sugar and 3 tablespoons of water in a medium-heavy saucepan. Stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Increase the heat and boil without stirring until the color is deep amber, occasionally swirling the pan and brushing down the sides with a pastry brush dipped into water, about 5 minutes. Stir in the condensed milk and butter. Continue stirring for 5 minutes or until the sauce thickens slightly. Remove the toffee sauce from the heat and spread 1 cup of the sauce over the prepared crust and refrigerate for about 1 hour or until the caramel is semi-firm. Keep the remaining caramel sauce at room temperature.

My recipe

I used a pie crust and pre baked it at  350 degrees in a 9” pie dish for 15 minutes, till golden.

I took a tin of dulce de leche, added 3 eggs, and 1 tbspn butter. I added it to the pie cust and baked it for another 17 minutes. I found no recipe where the toffee was mixed with eggs and baked. I thought it would lessen the sweetness of the toffee. It actually works out fine.

Cool the pie. Now slice 1 banana and stick all over the pie.

 Whip one cup of cream with 2 tbsp. confectioner’s sugar. Slather all over the pie. You could flavor the cream with instant coffee or vanilla, or even add chocolate shavings on the top. I did none of these things.

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