You see a lot of recipes on WordPress that don’t contain ingredients you would usually expect to see (eg Meatless Roast Chicken or Gluten-free, Lactose-free, Everything-free. I also like the ‘Paleo’ thing – its grains free, right?)
Anyway I was going to make Banoffee Pie. I bought the ingredients – cream, biscuits, chocolate, bananas. Then I forgot about it and the cream went off and bananas went black.
So I went out and bought some more cream and bananas. And forgot about it again. The bananas went black again but the cream was okay. To stop the cycle of banana abuse I decided to employ the kids in preparing something with the remaining ingredients, so we got busy and made something up:
Now I think I’ve done this kind of thing before. However there are some important differences here.
- I let the children (God help me) take the lead
- We didn’t follow a specific recipe
- We used a wicked implement to store the end product.
First we got a big freezer bag and filled it with Digestive Biscuits and then beat the hell out of it with a rolling pin:
Then we mixed the crumbs with some melted butter, added some chocolate chips and then pressed the mix into the base of a big cake tin:
Now the big cheat. We needed some caramel to put on the biscuit base. Last time I messed about creating some with evaporated milk. Fortunately this time we used some already made by those nice people at Nestle; in its goes:
Once the caramel had been spread out it went in the fridge to chill and then we got busy with the chocolate.
First the ganache. We heated some double (heavy) cream, popped in some butter and then poured it over a large amount of very dark chocolate. Then the mix was poured all over the chilled base:
Smooth it out but don’t let it mix into the caramel (which, by the way, is rubbish because it doesn’t set – better to make you’re own).
That’s some seriously smoooth g’nache baby!
Now shove it back in the fridge and get the topping ready. Not too hard. Just break up a load of milk chocolate and melt it:
The trick is making sure all the chocolate gets to that glass bowl
Now pour the chocolate all over the…..well, chocolate:
Put this creation back in the fridge to set for a couple of hours. Now for the final layer: the white chocolate drizzle (which was white chocolate melted with some cream and a dose of vanilla essence):
Now this creation isn’t easy to a) cut and b) move around. To deal with a) you need to heat a knife in boiling water. To deal with b) you need one of these:
Honestly this thing is great – its like a Grab ‘n’ Go device for large, unwieldy cakes. Now I feel some analysis is needed to see what we have actually created here:
I’m sure CSI could use our services should they ever suspect they have a killer dessert on their hands. Meantime I will make do with a nice cup of tea:
Beer maybe your friend but not at 3.00pm. Right?
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OMG……….how bodacious and wonderful!
Bodacious – the last time i heard that was in a Richard Gere film!
That looks amazing. I applaud your resourcefulness and respect your ability to let your children lead in the kitchen!
Brilliant! I love how you bring your sense of humour to your writing too.
wow that looks so amazing! I don’t think i would be able to get my kids involved in this- there still too young, and none of the chocolate would ever get into the bowls. BTW – i love the ironic coffee/tea mug!
I had to stand over him the whole time!
Yum!
Oops, disregard the sentence about the spring-form pan. I just looked at the pics again and noticed that you DID use one! Sorry!
I know its disguised as a pet carrier (as Conor below pointed out)!
I think I gained 10lbs. just reading that and looking at the pictures! It looked really good though…you might want to try a spring-form pan next time as it would make it easier to get the pie out…or you could just dig into the pan with a giant spoon!
Beer is always your friend, no matter the time of day!
I am amazed at you! You have no respect for your elders. Here am I sweating my guts out in the gym every other day just so I can cook and eat some moderately ‘bad’ food every so often and you do this! Brilliant infographic too. Our neighbour has a cat carrier that looks suspiciously like your cake transporter…..
Best,
Conor
Thats what it is. I thought it was weird them selling portable cake tins at the Vetinary
Dangerous recipe this one… four kinds of chocolate… I’m in heaven!! I don’t know what you’d call this.. what’s four times millionaire called (two is billion.. three is… hmmm)
Its a QuattrochocolatoMonteMindMelt
Nice!! I like that MindMelt part!!
How about a stout ice cream float? Your chocolate dessert is sure to please the ladies. I like the diagram; it does look like the soil profiles from a long ago agronomy class. You can freeze the bananas after peeling the black skins. In my mass quantity days we’d freeze very ripe bananas because wasting food was not permitted (at least when someone was looking) and make banana muffins when they came round the menu cycle..
Reblogged this on MibsBlog and commented:
You simply HAVE to read this, I promise you’ll feel peckish because of it!
As per usual, you’ve got me drooling with envy lol. Funny you should mention banana abandonment, BabyMibs this week, decided AFTER I’d been shopping that he no longer likes them, sadly, neither do I really, so one happy compost heap for us this week!
I know ours just decided they werent interested in them one day too
Toffee pie perhaps? Whatever you want to call it, it look incredible.
Toffee Pie – yes and next time I wont cheat and will make my own
now that’s pure evil haha
Ha ha ha! I love your expression “Banana Abuse”! I do the same, buy bananas for a project, turn out that those bananas wind up in the trash…
Your penultimate picture looks like the diagram of top soil I got shown in school. Except it’s CAKE and cake beats soil every time.
Oh and 3pm is the absolute perfect time for beer. Especially on a Friday.
That’s excellent analogy and a great way to get the kids into pedology!
Beer is ALWAYS your friend.
This recipe is naughty on roller skates, my friend. Looks absolutely delicious.