Banoffee Pie

This dessert is not really my usual style: made with mostly ready-made ingredients and inspired by a banoffee pie I had in one of the thousands of mediocre chain restaurants across the country that I really can't see the point of. It's the kind of trashy, slightly retro dessert that should offend on every level of food snobbishness, but I've never met anyone who can resist this combination of biscuit, banana, caramel and cream.

I wanted to try and recreate the best bits of the banoffee pie I ate in said chain restaurant (O'Neill's, and no, it wasn't my first choice of venue) which had a really thick, dense biscuit base piled high with caramel and cream. There was so much of this dessert that even I couldn't finish it, which is very unusual.
In my version of this banoffee pie, I've swapped out half the digestive biscuits for peanut cookies and added a splash of rum to the caramel and cream. You can replace the traditional digestives with any kind of biscuit you like, you could even make your own if you're feeling particularly domestic goddess-like.



Things I've learnt from making banoffee pie...

This is a super-rich dessert and although I divided it into two individual tart tins, even I couldn't manage to eat it in one sitting, so I'd recommend dividing it into four reasonably sized portions instead.

I found these pretty heart shaped tins in a charity shop, but you could use any shape of cookie cutter or tart tin to form the base, then once chilled, remove the cutter and pile the other layers on top.

This dessert can be made a good few hours in advance of when you want to serve it, and I think it tastes even better after it has been left in the fridge for a few hours.



Banoffee Pie: makes 4 individual pies

90g peanut cookies
90g digestive biscuits
75g salted butter, melted
1 tin of carnation caramel (dulce de leche)
1 banana, sliced into thin rounds
300ml double cream
3 tablespoons of dark rum (optional)
chopped toasted peanuts and/or butterscotch chips, for sprinkling

• Put the biscuits in a sandwich bag and crush to a into fine crumbs using a rolling pin
• Mix the biscuit crumbs with the melted butter and divide between 2-4 cookie cutters or individual tart tins 
• Press the crumbs firmly into the base of the tins with the back of a fork and chill for at least 1/2 an hour
• Carefully remove the biscuit bases from their tins/cookie cutters

• Scrape the tin of caramel into a bowl and stir in 1 tablespoon of the rum
• Cover each base with a thick layer of caramel, followed by the sliced bananas

• Whip the cream until it just begins to hold it's shape, fold in the remaining 2 tablespoons of rum (or to taste), then dollop over the bananas

• Top with the chopped nuts and butterscotch chips (if using) and return to the fridge to chill until ready to serve