British Banoffee Pie

One taste of this banoffee pie and you’ll know why it’s Britain’s favorite dessert.

Banoffee Pie Is Britain’s Favorite

If you’ve never tasted banoffee pie, you’re in for a real treat.

This is, hands down, Britain’s favorite dessert. The Brits call dessert “pudding,” which is confusing to many Americans. Now your “pud” as they say, can actually be a custard or American-style pudding but it can also be a cake, pastry or this banoffee pie.

This is an easy dessert to make too. You can eliminate making the toffee if you have some dulce de leche on hand because essentially that’s what you’re making. You can also use that canned whipped cream–the real stuff–if you put it on each piece as you serve it. Therefore I consider this banoffee pie to be one of the easiest desserts you can make! And another great thing is that it’s perfect to use up those bananas that may be getting a bit ripe.

Use Digestives For Authentic Taste

While graham crackers are an adequate substitute for genuine digestive biscuits, the digestives are more authentic and taste better.

Most larger food store carry digestive biscuits. First, don’t be fooled by the name. The English call cookies biscuits and the term “digestive” is another curious thing. Actually that comes from the fact that they have quite a bit of baking soda in the recipe. Since baking soda was alway thought to aid digestion, hence the curious name. Anyway, if your store has them, they’ll be with the imported cookies. Make sure to get the plain ones as they do chocolate covered ones as well–they are fantastic so buy some to eat but they can’t be used for the crust.

Digestives like graham crackers have some redeeming value in that they are whole grain and have a bit of fiber.

Whipped Cream With Moxie

Unless you have a heavy cream with 40 percent plus butterfat, you’ll have to stabilize whipped cream if you want it to hold up in the long haul–that is if you want it to remain all whippy after a few hours. That’s not a problem in Europe where creams have a higher percentage of fat, but in the States real heavy cream is only about 36 percent butterfat.

Many people use the cream cheese method to stabilize the cream. To be honest, I’ve never had much success doing it that way and I can always taste the cream cheese. Not that it’s a bad thing, but personally, I want cream to taste like, well, cream.

What I took to using was a fantastic product called Instant Clear Jel. It imparts no flavor to the cream and it works like a charm. I mix it with the sugar or confectioners/icing sugar I use to sweeten the cream. About a scant half tablespoon per 16 ounces/475 ml is what I use and that seems to be just right. However, you must keep a sharp eye because once the peaks form, it can quickly become dense and unspreadable. Underbeating is highly recommended here–been there, done that.

The Recipe

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Banoffee Pie

One taste of this banoffee pie and you’ll know why it’s Britain’s favorite dessert

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Chilling Time1 hour hr

Total Time1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: British

Keyword: banana desserts, British dessert recipes, caramel pecan rolls, dulce de leche, Favorite desserts

Servings: 8

Calories: 539kcal

Author: Judith Hannemann

Ingredients

Base:

• 1 1/2 cups digestive/graham cracker crumbs
• 3 tbs butter melted

Toffee Filling:

• 3 tbs butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 14 oz can condensed milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• -OR-
• 1 can prepared dulce de leche

Topping:

• 3 small bananas sliced
• 1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream—see NOTES
• 2 oz melted dark chocolate

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

• Mix the base ingredients and press into a 8-in/20cm springform pan that has been lined with parchment on the bottom.
• If you make the filling, heat the butter and sugar in a saucepan over low heat and stir until combined. Add the condensed milk and bring to a boil, stirring for 2-3 minutes. Be careful not to overcook this or it will become gritty with a fudge-like texture (although it will still taste good). Stir in the vanilla and pour into the prepared pan. Alternatively, you may use prepared dulce de leche if you want to eliminate this step.Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
• Place the sliced bananas on top of the toffee filling. Whip the cream until peaks form (I advise stabilizing the whipped cream). Spread whipped cream on top of the bananas.
• Drizzle with melted chocolate and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Notes

In a pinch you can substitute whipped topping, but it will not taste as good. Likewise, canned whipped cream, such as Reddi-Whip, may be added at the time you serve the pie. However, I highly recommend using real whipped cream and stabilizing the cream either using the cream cheese method or using instant clear jel and my preferred method is the clear jel.

Nutrition

Serving: 1g | Calories: 539kcal | Carbohydrates: 60g | Protein: 7g | Fat: 31g | Saturated Fat: 19g | Cholesterol: 91mg | Sodium: 231mg | Potassium: 451mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 46g | Vitamin A: 970IU | Vitamin C: 5mg | Calcium: 184mg | Iron: 2mg

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