I sat at my dearest friend’s house in Dubai insisting that I was too stuffed to even consider a sip of water let alone dessert. Despite my protests, out came Banoffee and my resolve went down the proverbial drain.
What is one to write about Banoffee? Just one more thing that the British got right, like Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Banoffee is beyond delicious, a perfect combination of the unhealthiest ingredients (except for the bananas) playing havoc with the waistline, and extreme euphoria for the mind and the taste buds.
A biscuit and butter pie crust playing turf to homemade caramel, bananas and whipped cream, topped with a biscuit crumble, a sprinkle of coffee and chocolate shavings, sparingly, if desired.
While conducting my research on Banoffee, I came across many articles, books, essays and chef’s stories regarding the pie. All gave their personal opinion and two cents on the origin of the pie, none disputing its sweet scrumptiousness.
Needless to say I was intrigued, if the pie was created in the 70s then there had to be literature on it by the creator Ian Dowding. Seek and you shall find, and I did, an essay titled The Completely True and Utter Story of Banoffee Pie by Ian Dowding, and with it his original recipe. Following are the excerpts;
Nobody ever invents dishes – they evolve. This then is how it happened. It may be a bit mundane but I’d like to put the record straight.
In the late 1960’s there were the seeds of a food revolution sprouting. Foreign travel was getting through to the British public that there was more to food than boiled beef and plum duff. I had completed a two-year catering course at Swindon College reasonably competently and had got a job at a small restaurant in Berkshire as an assistant sous chef.
Russell [the sous chef] used to do all the important things like main courses, pates and patisserie – I did all the rest. Russell had his secret recipes one of which was a dessert he had brought back from America called Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie. However it was no secret that it rarely worked. The tantrums Russell threw when it didn’t work schooled me well in the art of profanity if nothing else.
A year later I moved on to a head chef’s job at a small restaurant in Sussex called The Hungry Monk. I took all Russell’s secret recipes with me but quietly forgot about BCT pie. This was the early 70s and the food revolution was in full swing. In a conversation with my sister she told me about unopened boiling cans of condensed milk in water for several hours, which produced a soft toffee. A light bulb lit up in my head – I would resurrect BCT pie.
The owner of The Hungry Monk, Nigel Mackenzie, was never one to let me bask in the light of inventive glory for long. The words ‘surely we can make this even better’ still ring in my ears today. He decided that it required something else, a new dimension, a bit of a tweak here and there. We tried some different variations, apple was quite good, mandarin oranges were downright disgusting. Nigel suggested bananas and straight away we knew we had got it right. The only trouble now was that we had to find another name as banana, coffee, toffee pie was getting a bit long winded. It was Nigel who came up with the word ‘Banoffi’ as a combination and abbreviation of the syllables in the ingredients. It was only really meant as a temporary name but it seemed to stick.
Without that name we would not have been able to trace the rise in popularity of this concoction. It started as feedback from customers who rang to book and to check that it was still on the menu until it got to the point when we couldn’t take it off. Within a couple of years I began to see it on a lot of menus of other restaurants. People we knew coming back from abroad reported seeing it on menus in Australia and America, and there were even stories of it being served at No. 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace. The word ‘Banoffi’ now has the distinction of being listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.
That was a long time ago and now every supermarket has a version, there are Banoffi ice creams, biscuits, chocolates and other sundry items – and no, we have never made a penny from it, if only one of us had been canny enough to trade mark the name. I don’t mind that I won’t be remembered, but I do like the fact that many years hence someone somewhere will be making a Banoffi pie. Anyway I didn’t invent it – it evolved.
Many years have passed since those early days and I have lost touch with the people from the very early part of this story. Was it really called Blum’s? Did Russell really bring that idea back from America? Then a couple of years ago a friend brought me a copy of the American version of Homes and Gardens. In the back of the magazine was a cookery section featuring puddings from famous American restaurants, and there was Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie, named after a restaurant in Hollywood.
Rarely does it happen that we have a popular recipe (a recipe that we routinely make in our homes, and one that is routinely served at restaurants) and the creator, or culinary genius who helped evolve it to its current form, is our contemporary and himself tells us the Food Story behind it.
It would be like Mumtaz Mahal telling us her genius and her discussions with the royal kitchen staff that led to the evolution of the food we delightfully call the Biryani.
When it was time for me to make the Banoffee , I sought out my dearest friend Amna, she makes the best Banoffee, only second to Ian Dowding of course. My taste testers eagerly waited for me to wrap up the photo shoot armed with forks so they could dig in.
Needless to say it was a pure delight. SP delicious and wonderfully cool this hot summer, here it is from my kitchen to yours.
Ingredients
6 to 6 ½ oz. crushed Graham crackers
3 oz. Butter
3 golden and perfectly ripe bananas
14 oz. can of condensed milk (sealed in its original can and boiled in a full pot of water for 4 to 5 hours until the condensed milk turns to caramel. Please ensure that the can is submerged in boiling water for the entire length of time it is set on the stove to boil, adding more water as the water evaporates. Please ensure that the water does not dry out in the boiling pot, since that will lead for the can to explode causing serious bodily harm and kitchen ceiling damage. I usually boil several cans and freeze, so they are ready to use as a quick and easy dessert when needed). 1 pint heavy whipping cream (or double crème).
Optional, for decoration
Crushed graham crackers
Chocolate shavings
A dash of coffee powder
Castor sugar to taste to be added to whipping cream while whipping, I prefer not to add it since there is enough sweetness in the caramel, bananas and crust. The unsweetened whipped cream deliciously balances out the sweetness of the pie.
Method
Mix graham crackers and melted butter in a food processor, form pie crust by pressing down the pastry at the base of a pie dish and put in fridge to chill for ½ hour to 1 hour. Once the crust is chilled slice three bananas and set on the crust, pour caramel (add a dash of milk to make the caramel consistency spreadable, maintaining the thickness), beat whipping cream until it forms soft peaks. Pour on caramel and decorate if desired.
Store in fridge to set and serve.
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