Sunday Sweets: Mini Banoffee Pies

This Sunday Sweets is brought to you by a wonderful blog called The Vanilla Bean Diaries.

You may remember some months ago I attempted to make a Banoffee Pie but failed miserably. I will one day attempt to make it again (I promised myself!) but for now, I thought I’d try my hand at it on a smaller and more simple scale.

These mini banoffee pies are delicious, small treats and seriously easy to make! The base is especially easy because you don’t even have to make it – they are Arnotts Buttersnap Milk Cookies which you just heat in the oven for a bit and then mould into little tartlets – such a genius idea. If you can’t get Arnott’s biscuits then I any biscuit similar will work just the same.

The Vanilla Bean Diarie’s recipe called for grated dark chocolate on top but I just grated some freddo frogs instead because that was all the chocolate I had! Still worked perfectly fine.

Ingredients

– One packet of Arnotts Buttersnap Milk Cookies (or similar)
– 1 banana, thinly sliced
– ½ cup thickened cream, whipped
– 3 freddo frogs
– 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (395g)
– 1/3 cup brown sugar
– 3 tbsp butter

Steps

Pie Base

1) Pre-heat your oven to 180°C.
2) Place 12 buttermilk snap biscuits over the 12 holes in a patty pan and place into the pre-heated oven.
3) Bake for 2 minutes (or until the biscuits are soft) and remove from the oven.
4) Using your fingers, gently press the softened biscuits into the mould of the patty pan to form a cup and leave to cool.

Pie Filling

1) Combine the sweetened condensed milk, brown sugar and butter in a saucepan and stir together over low heat.
2) Cook while stirring continuously for about 10 minutes or until the caramel starts thickening. Do not let it boil.
3) Pour the caramel into the tartlet shells and place in the fridge for 30 minutes or until the caramel has set.
4) Whip the half cup of thickened cream until light and fluffy.
5) When you are ready to serve, arrange the sliced banana on the caramel, add a dollop of whipped cream and grate the freddo frog on top.

THE VERDICT

Success! I may have failed at trying to make a big banoffee pie but I certainly didn’t fail at a mini version.

They are quite sweet but they can be finished off in three bites so it’s not an overload of sweetness. Unless you eat three in a row like I did. I most certainly do not endorse doing so!

There was a great texture contrast between the softness of the banana, the crunch of the biscuit and the velvet cream. And, you know, they’re healthy because they have banana in them. Eh, kind of. Ok, not at all.

Either way, enjoy!