Banoffee Pie

One of the perks of living in a tropical country are the abundance of tropical fruits like bananas, papayas, mangoes, coconuts and etc. In our house, our favorites are mangoes and bananas. Every week we always have tons of bananas available, and most often than not we always have leftover bananas over ripping on the counter. Before that happens, I managed to whipped it into a Banoffee Pie.

Banoffee pies are such an ease to make and it takes just a few minutes to assemble it once you finish preparing the dulce de leche. This version of banoffee pie has a much thicker crust than what I did before, the thick crust gives it a nice crunch with all the gooey filling and soft.

As you can see from the pictures, the dulce de leche and ganche gets all gooey when the pie kept in room temperature. Its very good and taste very wicked! My family certainly likes it specially my little brother, he had seconds! :P

BANOFFEE PIE

adapted from Paula Deen

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 10 Tbsp softened butter
• 1 can dulce de leche
• 3 large bananas
• 1 1/2 cup whipping cream
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 8 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 1 cup heavy cream

1. Mix graham cracker crumbs with softened butter and press mixture into a 12-inch fluted rectangular tart pan or a 9-inch pie plate. Refrigerate while making the filling.
2. Roughly chop bittersweet chocolate and put into a microwave proof bowl with the 1 cup of heavy cream. Zap in the microwave in 10 second interval until the chocolate is all melted and smooth. Set aside until it cools and slightly thickens.
3. Retrieve the crust from the fridge, put in alternate dollops of the toffee filling and the ganache.
4. Cut 3 large bananas into chunks and line them up cut side up in the filled crust. Stand them up snugly. Cover with more toffee and ganache. Set aside and put in thee fridge.
5. Whip the 1 1/2 cup whipping cream until medium peaks.
6. Gently pour the whipped cream on top of the filled pie. Grate or shave off some chocolate on the top.
7. Refrigerate for 2 to 3 hours so that the flavors will develop.
8. Enjoy!

Dulce de Leche

After the storm my parents house was in full chaos, after weeks and weeks of cleaning, the ground floor part of the house is almost back to normal. However, with my oven still not working, I think I'm suffering from withdrawal after almost a month of not being able to bake anything, it's driving my insane!

Today is different. I spent all my Sunday afternoon in the kitchen. I grated the tons of cheese we got last Christmas and by doing so I found out that my B&D food processor is not heavy duty. The motor smelled burned and smoke started coming out! Oh course, I panicked and quickly switched it off. I even missed making salads! I know I'm beginning to sound like a nerd. But what the heck! I'm back in business.

To satisfy my baking needs, I decided to make a Banoffee Pie. I'll tell you about this banoffee pie in my next entry but for now I want to share with you how Dulce de Leche is made. One of the key ingredients in my pie. I must admit I wasn't expecting to make a soft-version the dulce, but I got a wee bit impatient so sue me ^_^

There are LOTS of method how to make one but my favorite is the pressure cooker method.

Pressure Cooker Method:

1. Submerge a can of condense milk in the pressure cooker pot with water. Since it takes a lot of time I usually make 2 or more cans at once. Please don't skimp on the water, the cans MUST be SUBMERGED in water or else it WILL EXPLODE!
2. Bring the water to boil and keep it boiling for 30 minutes to get the soft version dulce, but if you want the firmer version keep it boiling for 1 hour or more.
3. After the time is up, DO NOT OPEN the pressure cooker just let the cans cook in the water inside the pot.
4. Once cooled take it out of the water.
5. Open the can and enjoy!

Other methods of making dulce de leche are specified by David.

Meeting Toba Garrett

It's a good thing that some of the cookbooks that I have left is ONE of Ms. Toba Garrett's. I was lucky enough that I was able to ask for an autograph and have a picture with her. I felt like a stalker and was embarrassed to tell people that I was meeting her.

For the culinary enthusiast and cake/cookie decorating obsessed like me, you'd probably already knew who Ms. Garrett is, for those who don't? Well, you're missing a lot! Ms. Garrett is one of the BEST Cake decorator out there same as Colette Peters. I first saw Ms. Garrett on a re-run of Emeril Live, her creations are gorgeous and showpieces, the way she talks was very clear and easy to follow. From then on I like Toba Garrett, I even had 3 of her books, sad thing is only one was left, but these are excellent books her books are so much better than Colette's because here there are step by step instructions that you could easily follow. So If you have only a budget on buying a biik about cake or cookie decorating I would get Ms. Toba's hands down.

She was gracious enough to meet me on a Friday night after her busy schedule of teaching at the AHA Philippines. I was actually decided on joining the class weeks before the calamity happened, but then after it did happen I guess it isn't practical to spend so much money on myself when I would be needing the money to fix some of my stuff that got ruined. Good thing is Ms. Garrett said that she'll be back next June, so hopefully by then I would be able to attend. ^_^