Banoffee Pie

Britain’s banoffee pie is a dessert in which milk toffee, fresh bananas and whipped cream are layered on a base of pastry or crushed biscuits. The three form layers within a single slice, and, true to a name that joins banana and toffee, the sweetness of fruit and milk is at its heart. The combination was born in Sussex in the early 1970s from an attempt to improve the toffee pie on which it was based so that it would set consistently.

A Base of Baked Pastry or Crushed Biscuits

The original base is shortcrust. Butter is rubbed finely into flour and sugar, the mixture is bound with egg and chilled, and then it is used to line the tin. It is blind-baked with paper and baking weights, then baked further after the weights are removed until it is golden all the way to the bottom. Because the fillings are layered on only after the pastry has cooled completely, the bananas and cream are not cooked.

A biscuit base, on the other hand, is made by binding finely crushed biscuits with melted butter, pressing them onto the bottom and sides of the tin and chilling. As the butter cools and sets, the biscuit crumbs hold together to form the base. It has a texture in which you can feel the crumbs, unlike baked pastry.

Layering Bananas and Cream over Soft Toffee

The toffee used here is not a hard sweet that snaps, but a thick paste made by heating sweetened condensed milk. It is spread over the base, fresh bananas are arranged on top, and the whole is covered with cream. It needs to be soft enough to stay in each slice together with the fruit, without running out when cut.

Besides the original method of heating condensed milk on its own for a long time, there is also a method in which butter and brown sugar are combined in a pan, condensed milk is added and the mixture is reduced briefly. In the latter, the sugar is dissolved before the condensed milk goes in; the heat is turned off once the mixture thickens, and it is chilled so that the layer sets.

The original topping uses double cream, which is high in butterfat. Instant coffee and sugar are added to it, and a little ground coffee is also sprinkled over the surface. This finish layers bitterness and aroma over the rich sweetness of the banana and milk. Some versions are decorated with chocolate or cocoa; they keep the combination of condensed-milk toffee, fruit and whipped cream while changing the flavour of the top.

A slice of banoffee pie, with banana and cream layered on a biscuit base. Photo: Andy Li, 2026-04-21, location unknown. Original image / CC0. Downscaled version from the source; no additional editing.

Bananas, After Trying Apples and Oranges

At a previous workplace, the chef Ian Dowding came across “Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie”, which a chef named Russell had brought back from the United States. According to Dowding’s own recollection in 2006, its toffee was made by boiling sugar, butter and cream, and sometimes it would not set while at other times it was too hard. He then learned from his sister the method of heating tins of sweetened condensed milk in hot water for a long time, and remade the pie at The Hungry Monk in Sussex. The switch to condensed milk was an innovation introduced in this trial.

The owner, Nigel Mackenzie, still felt something was missing and suggested adding fruit. Apples were not bad, but mandarin oranges did not work, and in the end they settled on the combination with a layer of bananas. The owner also named it, joining the words to make Banoffi. Dowding himself dates its creation to 1971, but there are also later accounts that give 1972.

Customers are said to have asked, when booking, whether it was on the menu. Dowding says that reports reached him of it being seen at restaurants in Australia and the United States as well.

A Dessert That Spread, and the Label “American Pie”

The restaurant’s cookery book, The Deeper Secrets of the Hungry Monk, was published in 1974. Through this cookery book, the name and method of the original became known beyond the restaurant, and within a few years the dessert had spread to the menus of other restaurants. As it spread, a method using a crushed-biscuit base in place of baked shortcrust also emerged.

As it became more widespread, a British retailer sold it as an “American pie”, and the restaurant protested. According to a 1994 report in the Daily Telegraph, Mackenzie offered £10,000 to anyone who could show the same dessert existing earlier than at his restaurant, and Marks & Spencer apologised for the labelling.

Glossary