Banoffee Pie - Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking

Hi Bold Bakers! Welcome to Ireland and happy St. Patrick's Day. I am here with my mum. Hi there. And we are going to make a dessert that is very popular in Ireland. It is a banoffee pie. So mum, tell us a little bit about what a banoffee pie is. So really a banoffee pie is, generally has a biscuit base, sometimes a pastry base, has dulce de leche layer, bananas topped off with fresh cream. It can be varied a little bit with chocolate or sometimes even coffee. And it's very popular here in Ireland for some reason, though I wouldn't say its origins are here. No, it's not Irish, but it is very popular in Ireland and you'd get it at a lot of people's homes, wouldn't you? You would, yeah. It became a dinner party dessert. So just like mum said, we're going to start out with the biscuit base. Now what we use for a banoffee pie is digestive biscuits because they're kind of oaty, aren't they? Well, no, it's whole wheat, I think. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. It's whole wheat. Yeah, so relatively healthy for a biscuit, and a biscuit being a cookie. Yeah, biscuit being a cookie, that's a good point. So this is what you normally use. If you are in another country, you can actually use just kind of a plain biscuit or graham crackers. They work really well too. So mum, I'm going to give you the biscuits, throw them into that little food processor. Now the thing about this recipe is that you kind of eyeball it, don't you mum, like throw in a few biscuits, put in a little bit of butter, but I'm actually going to have the recipe on BiggerBolderBaking.com so you can follow that. So you just want to pop your biscuits into a food processor and blend them up until they're nice and fine. So once it's nice and fine like this, just like mum said, we're going to add in some melted butter to bring it all together. So when your cookies are blended up, it kind of looks like wet sand. All that butter is going to hold it together when we pat it into the tin. Ok mum, so go ahead and throw it into our pie tin. And as they say in Ireland, trun it into your tin hun. So that's it, it's kind of beginning to firm up already. So Gemma, would you maybe take it and do what it is you do with it after that? I think you want to put it off the side of the pan. Well all you do… With your fingers? Yeah, I'm going to do it with my clean hands mum. Ok. With your very clean hands Gemma. Yeah. What's your first job when you come into the kitchen? Wash your hands. Wash your hands, that's it. And do you know what the other one is? What? Put on the kettle. And put on the kettle. Fill the kettle. Yeah. Because you're always going to need hot water. That's true. What do you think mum? It's really nice. Lovely. It's going to firm up really well. It's actually beginning to firm up already. It is because of the washer. So we're going to pop this into the fridge for around 15 minutes and just like you said, let it firm up good and proper. And then I think it's kind of tea time. Do you think it's one cup of tea? I think yes. Ok, tea time. So in Ireland we are big drinkers of tea. We are. It's kind of a little bit of a ritual. You don't get very far without having a cup of tea. No. And you already have people in your house for tea. And that's another thing we borrowed from England. I mean there was no such thing as tea in Ireland obviously. So it came with the British and we're delighted to have it. It's great. Yeah. We are tea drinkers and we love our desserts. We love our food actually in general. Yeah, we do. But when it comes to Irish desserts, people always ask to do more Irish desserts and the thing about it is they're kind of like, they're delicious but we don't have that many. We've got like tarts. Yeah. Puddings. Traditionally in Ireland you don't have to go back very far to the time where, even when I was growing up, what you had available was what was growing. You didn't have things coming in from abroad. So we were very much restricted by our climate. We do have delicious ones though, don't we? Oh yes. I mean our produce, there's nothing to beat it really. I mean when it comes to our milk, our eggs, butter, so those have always formed a sort of really heavy part of, and so fruit cakes and anything that could be preserved and used through the winter. Yeah. My mum has, she gave me her recipe for a bread and butter pudding and a recipe that she made when I was growing up and that's actually on BiggerBolderBaking.com and actually my mum is going to contribute even more recipes to my website, a lot of traditional stuff that we grew up with and that's just very popular in Ireland so make sure you go over to my website and check those out. Yeah. And let's go check on our cookie base. I think it's time. So our cookie base is ready and it looks perfect. It's a nice shape on it. So our next step is to put in the, which first? The banana first? The banana first. Okay. Because if you put the banana on top it can discolor. Yeah. So probably it's best to put it under the dulce de leche, do you think? Yeah. We're going to put it in the bottom. I think so, yeah. So all you want to do is just do a few slices and then we're going to lay them in the bottom of the crust. Okay. So for this one, because it's just an 8-inch pan, about 2 bananas. Yeah, around 2 bananas. Nice and thick too. I think the thicker they are, the nicer they are. Actually, yes. Yeah. So that's our banana layer. Now our next layer is the dulce de leche. Now I have a recipe of how you can make this. It's really easy, isn't it Mum? It is, yeah. I have a recipe on my website of how you can make this and you can also boil a can of condensed milk and those instructions are on my website also. Okay, Mum, go ahead and add in the caramel. You can also use store-bought caramel sauce or homemade caramel sauce too. Whatever you can find that's really caramelly. Okay, how are we looking there, Mum? Well, it looks good now. Just about right. Yeah. So now we're going to top it off with some cream. So before we put on our cream, we're going to actually take this out of the tin just so we can make sure that it doesn't get messy after we put on the cream. Okay. And then get your serving platter and then just place it there gently in the middle. And then we're just going to add our whipped cream on top. So you're not going to pipe it? No. Just pile it on? You're going to put big dollops. I know. Because I really only have some small nozzles and all the rest. Yeah. You've got to make do with what you've got. Not quite as well equipped as your kitchen is, Gem. So there's my whipped cream. And Mum, do you want to do the finishing touch? I sure can. We're going to grate some chocolate on top. Okay. This blocky pie looks beautiful. Almost too good to eat. But of course, as the bakers, I'm going to serve ourselves two nice big slices. We deserve it. You do. Okay, Mum. Cheers. This is pretty delicious, Gem. Oh, it's yummy. You really can't beat caramel and bananas, right? And cream. I mean, now we know why some people have been asking for this. Yeah. Because it's so delicious. Yeah. I had forgotten how nice it was. Yeah. No, me too. Thank you very much, Mum, for being on my episode. You're welcome. I really hope you enjoyed it. Happy St. Patrick's Day, and I will see you back here every week for more Bigger Bolder Baking. Now we can take big bites. Yeah. Mmm.