Dare I open the bag and be seriously disappointed?
Yellow bananas!
Gladly I found out the scientific reasoning for their ripening. Fruit produces a gas called ethylene which is a ripening hormone. When an unripe fruit is left with ripened fruit, the hormone also affects the unripe fruit and speeds up the yellowing process. So the banoffee pie went ahead and the bananas were lovely! (24 hours is recommended for ripening in the bag, and a paper bag is essential as the gasses escape plastic bags apparently.)
This pie is absolutely decadent. Shortbread pastry crust topped with bananas, thick caramel toffee and whipped cream, sprinkled with chocolate shavings and more sliced banana. A real feast for the senses!
PASTRY:
1 1/4 cups plain flour
115g (1/2 cup) diced butter
1/4 cup caster sugar
FILLING:
115g (1/2 cup) diced butter
200g sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup muscovado (brown) sugar
2 tbsp. golden syrup
TO DECORATE:
3 ripe bananas
250ml cream, whipped
50g chocolate to decorate
1/4 cup lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 160C. To make the pastry, place flour and butter together in a bowl and process with hands until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Mix through the caster sugar to form a soft, pliable dough. Press the dough into a 20cm flan tin and bake for 30 minutes or until golden. Remove from heat and sit to cool.
To make the filling, place the butter in a saucepan with the condensed milk, brown sugar and syrup. Heat gently, stirring, until the butter has melted and the sugar has dissolved.
Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 7-10 minutes, stirring continuously, until the filling thickens and turns a light caramel colour. Cut up two of the bananas into thin slices and arrange as desired over the base of the pastry case. Pour the hot caramel over the top of the bananas and leave until completely cold and set.
To decorate, cut up the last banana into slices and sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent discolouration. Arrange them as desired in the centre of the pie and cover in piped whipped cream and curled or grated chocolate. Bon Appitit!
Can you imagine my grocery bills, Lou? : Emily basically eats nothing but bananas... :-(
ReplyDeleteohhh you poor thing!! at least she is eating something nutritious. you must be broke though!!
ReplyDeleteYes... ;-) But more worried about her not getting all the right nutrients... I have run out of ideas to make her eat. Bananas at lunchtime and rice cereals for dinner... no wonder she still wakes up at night for a bottle!
ReplyDeletei'm all out of ideas too...Ben is only keen on bread and biscuits:/ its a battle to feed him other things. still has his bottle 3 times a day but i worry too. bananas are a better source of nutrients than bread at least!
ReplyDeleteLooks delicious... and here in South Africa bananas are pretty much dirt cheap! :)
ReplyDeleteoh lucky you Dominique! they are usually cheap here too, about $3 kg. at the moment theyre up to $14 kg in the local super markets! i dont know what the excuse is...maybe the floods...
ReplyDelete