Editor’s Note: From her highly anticipated first book Life Is What You Bake It, Vallery tackles a British recipe and makes it quintessentially American by adding peanut butter. Here’s what she had to say about this recipe:
Before I competed on The Great American Baking Show, I was a fan of The Great British Bake Off, though I found myself utterly confounded by the vocabulary and seemingly polite competition. This was a world where “biscuits” are cookies, bar cookies are “tray bakes,” and cakes are “puddings”! Plus, unlike the fierce spirit on American cooking shows, the competition seemed downright amicable.
I recall being introduced to the portmanteau banoffee pie, a mashup of banana cream pie, dulce de leche, and banana pudding. I assumed the “offee” in its name was for coffee, but in true British fashion it stood for toffee. In my version, I add peanut butter to the whipped cream because peanut butter and bananas are so great together (and, yes, so American!). You might be wondering if toffee in a pie adds too much sweetness. I wondered the same thing, but I kept finding myself going back to the fridge for another slice!
Makes one 9-inch pie
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter
- 6 tablespoons (75 grams) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 graham cracker pie crust, baked
- 4 ripe bananas
- 1 cup (240 milliliters) heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons (48 grams) creamy peanut butter
- 2 tablespoons (15 grams) confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped and melted
Instructions
- Combine the butter and brown sugar in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir occasionally, until the sugar dissolves into the butter. Pour in the condensed milk and heat until it starts to boil, thicken, and take on a little color, like a blond caramel, 5 to 7 minutes. Let the mixture bubble for 2 to 3 more minutes—the bubbles will be slow at first, but then will be more frequent. Remove from the heat and stir in the salt.
- Pour the toffee filling into the graham cracker crust and let cool at room temperature for 30 minutes, then cover and transfer to the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes or up to 3 days.
- Peel and slice the bananas ½ inch thick. Arrange them on top of the filling.
- Add the cream, peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or to a large bowl, if using a hand mixer). Whip the ingredients on medium low speed until medium peaks form, about 3 minutes. Dollop the cream on top of the bananas and smooth into an even layer.
- Use a spoon to drizzle the melted chocolate over the whipped cream. Refrigerate the pie, uncovered, until ready to serve.
Storage: If not serving within a few hours, refrigerate, covered, after step 2 for up to 3 days. Then proceed with the recipe when ready to serve.
Reprinted from Life Is What You Bake It. Copyright © 2021 by Vallery Lomas. Photographs copyright © 2021 by Linda Xiao. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Random House.