Sweet Punch: Banoffee Pie & Fruitoffee Pie

Hello my dear readers, I am late in wishing you all a Happy New Year! I got back from my vacation 3 weeks ago and wanted to do a recap of year 2011. I never got around to doing it and will start off the New Year on a sweet note. Sweet Punch team chose Banoffee Pie of banana toffee pie from Swapna's blog for the month of January. I made this dessert yesterday and it was yummilicious! Although it is loaded with calories, that did not stop us from digging in. I have a small portion still in the fridge, which I will lick it clean by the end of the day! 🙂

Oh, before I get to the recipe, let me explain the title of the post. The recipe chosen is banoffee pie or banana toffee pie and I don't like bananas. 🙁 I substituted bananas with mixed fruits for my share of the pie. I used bananas for half the pie and mixed fruits for the other half. Hence the name fruitoffee or fruit toffee pie 🙂

This recipe is very easy and requires very few ingredients. The only difficult part of this preparation is making the Dulce de Leches or the toffee for the pie. This is a time consuming process, cooking a can of condensed milk in boiling water for 3 hours. I followed this method but there are other alternatives, baking, microwaving or pressure cooking the can of condensed milk. Different tried & tested methods of preparing dulce de leches are explained here.

Source: Swapna's Cuisine
Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

• 1 can Condensed Milk (can is 396 ml or 14 oz.)
• 1 packet or 7 oz. or 200 grams Marie / Digestive Biscuits
• 100 grams or 1 stick (minus 1 tbsp.) Unsalted Butter
• 1 Banana sliced (for full pie use 3 bananas and for ½ pie can use 1 ½ bananas)
• ¼ Apple sliced
• Few drops of Lime Juice
• 5-8 seedless Red Grapes halved
• 5 Pineapple chunks (I used canned)
• 5 – 8 segments of canned Mandarins
• ½ Pint or 236 ml Heavy Cream whipped or 2 cups Whipped Cream
• ½ tsp. Coco Powder for dusting (opt.)

Preparation:

• Preparation of Dulce de Leches:
  • Take a large pot or a sauce pan and place the unopened can of condensed milk, standing up. Pour enough water in the pot until the can is immersed in water and the water level is at least 2” above the can.
  • Bring the water to boil on medium high. Then reduce the heat to low and simmer it for 3 hours. If the water evaporates, pour hot water over the can and make sure the water level is 2” above the can. Check here for other alternatives to make Dulce de Leches.
  • Remove the can from boiling water and let it cool complete, at least 4-6 hours. I made my dulce de leches in the night and I left the can on the counter top all night to let it cool. If you are not using it right away, store it in the fridge unopened. Unopened can of dulce de leches can be stored for months in the fridge.
• Powder the digestive biscuits to powder. Melt butter and mix it with biscuit powder.
  

• Take a pie dish or a serving bowl and press the biscuit mixture into the pan.
  

  Chill the pie dish until the pie crust is set. OR bake it in a 320 F / 160 C preheated oven for 10 minutes for a firm crust, as I did. Let the crust cool completely before filling the pie.

• Pour dulce de leches in the pie dish.
  

• Arrange sliced bananas on dulce de leches. If you are like me, then substitute the banana slices with sliced mixed fruits.
  

• Whip the cream until soft peaks are formed. I removed the cream just before whipping and I also place the whipping bowl in an ice bath, which is in another ice filled bowl.
  

• Spread ⅓ – ½ of this whipped cream on the bananas. This is about ¾ - 1 cup of whipped cream.
  

• Transfer the remaining whipped cream to a piping bag and pipe it on the pie. I used star nozzle. This step is optional.
• Garnish the pie with lightly dusting the coco powder on top. Chocolate sauce can also be drizzled over the pie.
  

• Serve it immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Notes:

• The pie is delicious but I found it a little bit sweet to my taste. I could not eat too much at one go. I would suggest adding more fruits than I did. I used 1 banana for ½ the pie and I could have easily used 1 ½ bananas and 3 bananas for the whole pie. The same thing if using mixed fruits.

Tip:

• If you noticed, I listed a few drops of lime juice in the ingredients list. I tossed the sliced apple in few drops of lime juice. Sliced/cut apples retained their color when tossed in lime juice. The apple slices in the first picture were cut almost 2 hours prior to the photo shoot and the apple slices still retained their color.