Banoffee Pie

Prep time does not include the 30 minutes or so the base spends in the refrigerator.

Note:
To make banoffee toffee, get a deep casserole dish with a lid and preheat the oven to 140 C or 130C for fan-forced (gas mark 4, 285 F). Place as many unopened tins of sweetened condensed milk as will comfortably fit in the dish (do not overcrowd) and cover completely with water.

Bring water to the boil on the stove, and once it boils, cover with the lid and remove from heat. Place in the oven and cook for 3 1/2 hours. Then, remove cans from the water (do NOT use your hands!) and allow to cool. Store for later use. (When you store the tins of toffee after a few months, sugar crystals begin to form on the toffee and it becomes crunchy!)

You may be able to buy this already made from the supermarket. You can in Australia, the main brand being Nestle’s Top-N-Fill, which also comes in chocolate, and would also work in this pie.
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Place the biscuits in a food processor (if you are using the graham crackers also add 2 Tablespoons of shaved chocolate here) and pulse until they have become small chunks/ powder. Place the butter in the processor and pulse until the butter is mixed in and the biscuit mixture is coming together. You should be able to press the mixture up the sides of the processor and have it stay. If not add a touch more butter and pulse again.

Pour the biscuit mixture into a 20cm (8 inch) round glass or ceramic pie dish. You can use a pie flan as an alternate. If you are feeding a large gathering you can double the recipe and use a 25cm (11 inch) rectangular tin. Pack the biscuits in to cover the base (I don’t usually go up the sides, but you can if you want). Cover with plastic wrap and place into the fridge for at least half an hour (if you are in a bind or a real rush you can skip this step).

Remove from the fridge and open the can of caramel/ toffee. Using a spoon or knife mix the toffee until it is runny and all the lumps are gone. Cover the biscuit base with the toffee, making sure the whole base is covered. You may want to use a little more than one tin if you feel that there is not enough, but the caramel is really, really sweet so less is often more in this case and one is enough to completely cover the base.

Slice the bananas into circles (depending on how small your bananas are and how thickly you slice them you may need up to 5) and cover the toffee, packing them in so there are as few gaps as possible.

Whip the cream with the 2 teaspoons of instant coffee (or 1 teaspoon of coffee grounds) until it just holds its shape (soft peaks) and spread over the bananas, making sure to completely cover them. Sprinkle ground coffee or shaved chocolate over the cream and serve or refrigerate until ready to serve.

This will keep covered tightly with glad wrap in the fridge for a day or two (if it lasts that long).