Baking

Pecan is still baking away in there and I'm taking the time to become a Baking Goddess. Much to the delight of Hubby and not my waistline. I'm sure Pecan will appreciate it later as well especially when it comes to School Fetes (if they even still have them then, they'll probably be outlawed because of allergy risks!).

As part of my 25 4 25 plan, I decided that I'd bake Hubby a cake to celebrate him finishing uni. I asked Hubby what he wanted and he said whatever I wanted to bake. I told him that no that wasn't the point, the point was for him to be spoiled. So I wound up making a Banoffee Pie adapted from two different sources - Curtis Stone and taste.com.au. I didn't want individual pies so the second recipe was ruled out and I also wussed out on making pie pastry. But Curtis Stone's was just a little bit too sugarey for me and so I used the toffee from the taste recipe and simply boiled a can of skim condensed milk. So without further ado my Pie:

Ingredients

• 1 can skim condensed milk
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 3 large bananas (use as many as you want)
• 600ml whipping cream (I used less than this you but just whipped it all in case)
• 280g Marie biscuits
• 150g butter (melted)
• Milk to smooth out the toffee

Method

Crust

1. Line the bottom of a 22-23 cm springform pan with parchment paper (don't grease the sides).
2. Chop the biscuits in a food processor until they are finely ground.
3. Pour the melted butter over the crumbs and process to blend well. The crumbs should stick together when pressed.
4. Press the crumb mixture over the bottom and 3 ½ cm up the sides of the springform pan. Refrigerate for 20+ minutes.

 Toffee

1. Cover the can of condensed milk in cold water (make sure it's well covered) in a saucepan. Bring the water to boil and then leave to simmer for 3 hours (making sure the water continues to cover the can.
2. Take the can out of the water and once it's cooled slightly pop off the top. (Now I wound up double boiling this with some milk to get it to a smoother consistency). Use one cup to double boil and when it's a smooth as you can get it but still thick cover the bottom of the crust. I felt like I didn't have enough toffee but it worked out you could probably do 2 cans.
3. Leave the leftover toffee in the can (this will be the sauce over the pie and again I suggest double boiling and putting in some milk).

Pie Filling

1. Whip the cream using an electric beater.
2. Slice 2 bananas and put a little bit of lemon juice over.
3. Fold the bananas into the whipped cream and then put into the pie crust on top of the toffee.
4. Slice the remaining banana and again put lemon juice over the slices. Use these to decorate the top of the pie.
5. Spoon the remaining toffee sauce over the pie.

*Note the toffee didn't turn out as great as it could (very gluggy consistency) but still tasted really really yummy and I just couldn't justify using the extra sugar & butter it called for in Curtis Stone's recipe.

It was really yummy and we had it for afternoon tea with the in-laws after we asked my Father-in-Law to put up the remaining to shelves and a canvas print of Hubby and I at Sculpture by the Sea two years ago. We still had half the pie left so I told Hubby to take it to work before accidentally dropping it this morning whoops - luckily it pretty much stayed together.