Banoffee cake can be made faster by using pre-made hard toffee.
Banana cake is a type of dessert first created in a pub in England. It consists of a puff pastry cake base filled with condensed milk toffee and banana and topped with whipped cream mixed with coffee and a little sugar. The original recipe for the dish calls for everything to be made from scratch, although assembled versions were developed very quickly as more pre-made ingredients became available. One of the most unique aspects of the dish is the way the caramel is made, as it involves cooking an unopened can of condensed milk. The name of the cake, banoffee, is a word that was created from the combination of the words “banana” and “toffee”, the two main ingredients.
Brewed coffee is an important ingredient in the preparation of banoffee cake.
The most time consuming step in preparing banoffee cake is creating the toffee. Toffee is just caramelized sugar and cream. The recipe creates caramel by taking unopened cans of condensed milk and completely submerging them in boiling water for at least three hours. The heat causes the sugars inside the can to caramelize. There is a risk that the cans will burst if the water level drops too low, so a safer way is to boil the cans for a bit, then put the pan in the oven for three hours or more.
The original banoffee pie recipe uses flour, butter, and egg pie batter. The ingredients are mixed together to form a solid dough that is rolled out until slightly thin. This is placed in a tin pie, ballasted and blind baked until the crust hardens and slightly browns.
Once the caramel and crust are set, the banoffee pie can be assembled. The cooled caramel is poured into the cake batter to form the bottom layer. The bananas are cut in the center and placed on top of the caramel to cover it as much as possible. The cream is then whipped and combined with a little coffee and sugar. Whipped cream is layered on top of the cake in a generous layer, completing the dessert.
In fact, the banafe cake can be made very quickly, using mostly pre-made ingredients. Toffee is often sold in grocery stores, mainly Spanish stores, under the name dulce de leche. Whipped cream fillings or pre-made desserts can be used, as well as frozen pie crusts or a graham cracker crust. The finished banoffee cake may taste slightly different when made this way, but it can be put together fairly quickly and doesn’t need to be baked.