Banoffee pie is a fantastic pudding. It is usually made using crushed biscuits as a base and then filled with cool caramel to make the toffee centre. Sliced bananas then make another layer followed by cream. Many people then furnish it with melted chocolate or a dusting of chocolate powder.
The recipe is generally considered to have been created in a restaurant in East Sussex in England called The Hungry Monk. In 1972 the owner, Nigel Mackenzie, and his chef Ian Dowding are credited with it's inception.
During a visit to the United States, Dowding became familiar with a dessert called "Blum's Coffee Toffee Pie" (BCTP) and it was this that apparently gave him the initial idea for what became baoffee pie. BCTP however was very difficult to perfect - it consisted of a toffee filling topped with a thick coffee cream, but it either came out too hard or didn't set properly.
When back from the states, Dowding and Mackenzie worked with the idea and used bananas and toffee. They originally created the word "banoffi" which has slowly turned into "banoffee" and has even found it's way into the English language, used to describe anything with a banana and toffee flavour.
Confident that they had perfected the dish, Dowding added it to the dessert menu of the restaurant. It proved highly successful, with diners only making reservations on the condition that the new pie was on the menu - after a while they realised that it could not be removed from the menu at all!
During the next couple of years or so other local restaurants began to sell their version of the pudding. Dowding said that he had also heard people saying that it was beginning to get sold in the US and Australia. It looked like the dessert had really taken off, and during the late 1970s it was a great selling dessert in India, fuelled by the young European backpackers of the day.
According to Wikipedia, some supermarkets began to sell banoffee pie and marketed it as an American pie. Not wanting his recipe to be claimed by the Americans, Mackenzie offered a 10,000 prize for anyone who could produce a published recipe with the dessert listed that predated 1972. None was found and there is now a sign outside The Hungry Monk claiming it as the birthplace of the famous pudding.
Over the years the pie became more and more popular and is now served all over the world.
The recipe is generally considered to have been created in a restaurant in East Sussex in England called The Hungry Monk. In 1972 the owner, Nigel Mackenzie, and his chef Ian Dowding are credited with it's inception.
During a visit to the United States, Dowding became familiar with a dessert called "Blum's Coffee Toffee Pie" (BCTP) and it was this that apparently gave him the initial idea for what became baoffee pie. BCTP however was very difficult to perfect - it consisted of a toffee filling topped with a thick coffee cream, but it either came out too hard or didn't set properly.
When back from the states, Dowding and Mackenzie worked with the idea and used bananas and toffee. They originally created the word "banoffi" which has slowly turned into "banoffee" and has even found it's way into the English language, used to describe anything with a banana and toffee flavour.
Confident that they had perfected the dish, Dowding added it to the dessert menu of the restaurant. It proved highly successful, with diners only making reservations on the condition that the new pie was on the menu - after a while they realised that it could not be removed from the menu at all!
During the next couple of years or so other local restaurants began to sell their version of the pudding. Dowding said that he had also heard people saying that it was beginning to get sold in the US and Australia. It looked like the dessert had really taken off, and during the late 1970s it was a great selling dessert in India, fuelled by the young European backpackers of the day.
According to Wikipedia, some supermarkets began to sell banoffee pie and marketed it as an American pie. Not wanting his recipe to be claimed by the Americans, Mackenzie offered a 10,000 prize for anyone who could produce a published recipe with the dessert listed that predated 1972. None was found and there is now a sign outside The Hungry Monk claiming it as the birthplace of the famous pudding.
Over the years the pie became more and more popular and is now served all over the world.
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