NO-BAKE BANOFFEE PIE - vegan, gluten and sugar free

I was so surprised the other day, whilst watching an episode of The SECRET SUPPER CLUB on www.channel4.com, to discover that Banoffee Pie was not the brainchild of an American but a restaurant owing couple from East Sussex, UK. A baking beans throw away from me! Wikipedia flls me in on this delicious story;

Credit for the cake’s invention is claimed by Ian Dowding and Nigel Mackenzie at The Hungry Monk restaurant in Jevington, East Sussex. They developed the dessert in 1972, having been inspired by an American dish known as “Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie”, which consisted of smooth toffee topped with coffee-flavoured whipped cream. Dowding adapted the recipe to instead use the type of soft caramel toffee created by boiling a can of condensed milk, and worked with Mackenzie to add a layer of bananas. They called the dish “Banoffi” and it was an immediate success, proving so popular with their customers that they “couldn’t take it off” the menu.^[2]
The recipe was adopted by other restaurants, and was reported on menus in Australia and America.^[2] In 1994, a number of supermarkets began selling it as an American pie, leading Nigel Mackenzie to offer a £10,000 prize to anyone who could disprove their claim by finding any published pre 1972 recipe for the Pie. Mackenzie erected a blue plaque on the front of The Hungry Monk confirming it as the birthplace of the world’s favourite pudding.^[3]

^{I just had to give it a go - vegan style - Presenting my ….}

Easy No-bake Banoffee pie

Ingredients list

one very ripe BaNaNa and one not so ripe.

BASE

1/2 cup pecans or almond flour

1/2 cup coconut flour (use almond flour if you do not have the coconut flour but try and get it if you can)

6 medjoul dates

1/4 cup of fruit syrup (agave, date, or maple syrup are good too)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

FILLING

6 organic dried apricots

2 dried dates

1 tbs fruit sweeetner or sweetened apricot or plum jam

CREAM TOPPING

1/4 cup cashews - soaked for 1 hour

1 tbs coconut butter/oil (this gives more ‘mouth melt’ and extra stability)

pinch of salt

METHOD

1. lightly oil three small or one large spring form pan and then dust over with almond flour. This stops the sticking to the sides.

2. add all of the base ingredients into a food processor and bltz until it starts to clump.

3. blitz the filling ingredients to a smooth paste and cover the base of each pie crust with equal amounts of the mixture.

4.dust the ‘toffee’ base with a thin layer of dark cocoa powder

5.take the VERY RIPE banana and mash or use a stick blender to blend. Spoon a layer on top of the base

6.blend all of the cream topping ingredients until smooth and spoon on to the banana layer.

7. decorate with thin NOT TOO RIPE banana slices.

8.you can dust the top with cocoa powder or drizzle with melted chocolate. I had this crazy idea of mixing 3 tbs of the melted chocolate with balsamic glaze. I thought ‘what are you doing girl…thats a crazy bonkers notion’, but I carried on regardless. I loved the tartness playing against the smooth, cloying, sweet pie. Are you crazy enough to give it a go?