After watching Master Chef New Zealand, I wanted to make one of the things featured in the show, a Banoffee Pie. Banoffee is the hybrid of bananas and toffee. The show's website didn't feature a recipe, so I looked a few up and chose to use the recipe made by Paula Deen. After printing it up, I later found a banoffee pie recipe from Epicurious.com I apparently printed five years ago. I forgot about this, and to tell the truth, I don't keep a book of recipe print outs, I'm not that high pro. For whatever reason, I printed it out as a reminder to myself to try it one day, and it slipped my mind. Nonetheless, what moved me to choose Deen's recipe was a chance to make my own pie crust, which I had not done before. Either this was going to be bad, or it would be good.
I made the crust first using graham cracker crumbs and butter. Before I started to stir up the mixture, I didn't know if this would work, but it did and I started having ideas about making more crusts. I baked it for about 8 minutes and let it cool. Then came the toffee. As I'm looking at the ingredients, I knew that it was going to be sweet, it was like having a sugar pie. Plus, it's a Paula Deen recipe, and she is known for having a major sweet tooth.
To make a long story short, while the toffee looked to be good, I think I should have baked it more than the 90 minutes as listed in the recipe. After the fact, I learned that the toffee should be cooked until it has a nice brown glaze to it, and I did not do that. I let it cool too, but as I started putting in the chopped bananas and poured the second half of the toffee, it started to drip. My pie tin was too small.
I made the heavy whipping cream and poured it on. It was messy but looked good, and I let it cool in the fridge for a few hours. I punched up the recipe in a food diary that I keep, which is meant to help me lose weight. I know, "a banoffee isn't a healthy food" but I allow myself to go off the trails for a day. The recipe suggested that it served 8, but upon completing the tally of ingredients, I discovered each slice offered 750 calories and the carb count for a slice? 87. I then realized I would have to have just a spoonful.
Verdict? I could not take the sweetness, it was overwhelming. I could taste the potential of how good it could be, but I was not feeling this at all. The crust, however, I really liked and look forward to making more crusts.
Also, it was a bit too runny and gooey so I have a feeling that I did not cook it long enough. Not sure if the Pyrex bowl I cooked it in had anything to do with, but... it was a no go.
I will try the Epicurious banoffee pie recipe on another day. If you take a look at the recipes, both have different methods of putting it together, and one factor that I thought was worth singling out: the Paula Deen recipe says to use two 14 ounce cans of condensed milk, while the Epicurious one says to use 2 cups. Also, "a generous pinch of salt" is something that was not in the Deen version. Will it be an improvement? I hope so, and if not, I will not make banoffee pie again.
