The Ultimate Banoffee Pie

I adore Banoffee Pie. Being American, I'd never had it until I met my British husband. It's his all time favourite, so I thought I'd try to make it. Over the years I've tweaked the recipe. It's an ongoing process. You can make your own caramel, but for the sake of ease, I buy mine in a jar. It's lovely, and if it's good enough for Jamie Oliver, it's good enough for me.

You will need the following...

Ingredients:

1 jar of Merchant Gourmet Dulce de Leche caramel
150g/5 oz digestive biscuits, crushed
50g light brown or granulated sugar
3 large bananas, sliced
250ml/10oz double cream
75g/3oz butter, melted
230g/8oz pecans, chopped
Icing sugar
Small bar of chocolate (I used Green and Blacks Butterscotch milk choc bar, about 35g)

Tools:

Chopping Board
Sharp knife
Mixing bowl and spoon
Small/medium Ziplock bag
Wooden spoon or mallet or shoe.
Springform pan, about 9in or 21cm in diameter. (it can be bigger, but pie will be thinner)

Preparing the Crust

In a Ziplock bag, place 150g of biscuits of your choice, the tastier, the better. I planned on using just hobnobs, but saw the Tesco all butter pecan cookies. So I used about 5 hobnobs and 5 pecan cookies. Seal the bag, duh. Proceed to smash and bash bag with wooden spoon or mallet until cookies are crushed.
Next, place half the chopped pecans (115g) in a bowl and add some sugar until the mixture resembles my picture. I think its about 50g.
Add the cookie crumbs to the nut mixture.
Melt 75g of butter in microwave for about 30 secs. up to a minute.
Pour butter over nut mixture and stir thoroughly. After making this, I think I'd use slightly less butter next time, but experiment. Don't pour it all in at once. Mix a little in until the crumbs really hold together, and that should be about right.
Butter the bottom and sides of your pan.
Press mixture into pan. Chill.
Meanwhile, take the 115 g of pecans that are left and get damp with water. Then cover with icing sugar. Bake at 180c or 350f (gas mark 4?) until it caramelizes. It didn't brown as much as I thought it would, but it tasted great, so if you want them more brown, I suggest googling to find a better caramelized nut recipe.
Put caramelized nuts in freezer to cool.

Making the Pie Filling

This is the easy peasy bit...

Chop the (3 large) bananas and put them into a bowl.

Add the whole jar of caramel to the bananas. Mmm... Mix it up.
Using a butter knife, loosen the edges of the chilled pie crust from the edges of the pan, as it will really help you cut slices later.
Spread it over the pie crust. The best thing about this method is that you dont see a mangy-brown-banana layer like in some pies.

The Finishing Touches

Whip 250ml of double cream until it has soft peaks, so when you lift your whisk out, the cream has a little 'wave' which holds, but folds at the top a little.
Spread the cream over the pie, and make it pretty.
Grate chocolate into fine pieces. As you can see in the photo, I added a paper towel to the bottom of the grater so my fingers wouldnt melt the chocolate before I could put it on the pie.
Get caramelized nuts from freezer and arrange on pie.
Sprinkle grated chocolate on pie.
Chill and enjoy.

This pie keeps for ages. It tastes better if you let it sit a day before eating, as the flavours merge. It took us a week to eat, as it's SO rich.

You could also try making this in a large muffin tin, lining the tin with cling film, pressing the crust up the sides as well, to make individual pies that lift out.

I hope you like it!