MY COLUMN this week is a tribute to the foodie who gave the world an irresistible dessert of banana, toffee and whipped cream known as “banoffi pie.”
Nigel Mackenzie, who died recently at age 71, left a promising career with Unilever in 1968 to open a restaurant in East Sussex, south of London, called the Hungry Monk - so named because the 16th century building that housed the eatery had been inhabited by monks.
In 1971 Mackenzie and his head chef Ian Dowding investigated an American recipe called Blum’s coffee toffee pie, made by boiling a can of condensed milk to make caramel. Mackenzie and Dowding tried adding apples and oranges to the recipe until they hit upon bananas as the magic ingredient.
Dowding recalled: “Straightaway we knew we had a winner.”
Once they had perfected the dish, Mackenzie’s wife asked what they were going to call it. The first suggestion was “banoffee”, but Mackenzie had the brainwave of naming it “Signor Banoffi’s pie.”
The dish proved so popular with their customers they "couldn't take it off" the menu.
The dish, also spelled "banoffee," was adopted by many restaurants around the world. It became especially popular in the Philippines.
In 1984 a number of supermarkets began selling it as an American pie, leading Mackenzie to offer 10,000 British pounds (P650,000) to anyone who could disprove the Hungry Monk's claim to be the English inventors of the dish. No one came forward.
The word "Banoffee" entered the English language and became used to describe any food or product that tastes or smells of both banana and toffee. A recipe for the pie, using a biscuit crumb base, is often printed on cans of Nestle's condensed milk.
Try this simple recipe:
Banoffi Pie
Ingredients
400 grams digestive biscuits
200 grams butter
2 cans condensed milk
1/2 liter cream
2 large bananas (ripe)
1 chocolate (for grating decoration)
Method
* Melt butter and add crushed biscuits, spread on bottom of tin and chill.
* Place the unopened cans of condensed milk (don't open the can!) in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring the water to the boil then reduce slightly and let the can boil covered for 2 ½ to 3 hours. IMPORTANT: Don't ever let the saucepan boil dry. Keep checking up on it and adding water if necessary.
* Remove the can and wait for a few minutes before opening it very carefully in the sink. The condensed milk will look like creamy brown caramel.
* When cool, spread the toffee over the biscuit base. Slice up a couple of ripe bananas on top of the toffee. Whip up the cream and spread over the banana.
* Grate some chocolate or even chocolate curls, or drizzle melted chocolate over the top. Chill or serve straight away.
* TIP: One can boil up a load of cans of condensed milk. Once they are cooked they will keep very safely for months. This makes it the fastest dessert in town if one has the toffee already. Also, the biscuit base mix freezes very well.
Yummy!