One of Rob’s favorite desserts is Banoffi Pie. While I (and probably most Americans) had never heard of it, apparently its big in the UK and Australia. Here is a link to the story behind Banoffi Pie, which also has a link to the original recipe.

Basically, Banoffi Pie is a pie crust, with a caramelly toffee in it, bananas on top of that, then coffee-flavoured whipped cream on top. I’ve modified it to add chocolatey goodness, because chocolate is just yummy.

Chocolate Cupcakes (makes about 15)

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup cake flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375. Line cupcake pan with wrappers. Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the vanilla, then beat in eggs, mixing well after each addition. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients. Add dry ingredients to the sugar mixture alternately with the buttermilk, starting and ending with dry ingredients.

Fill cupcake wrappers about 1/2-2/3 full. Do not overfill, or the cupcakes will collapse. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. My oven cooks cool, so I leave it at 375, however, you may wish to turn the temperature down to 350 once the cupcakes are in the oven.

Toffee Filling

1 can sweetened condensed milk

This is the fun bit–full of danger! (If you don’t want to use the dangerous method, the link above has a method for making toffee that doesn’t involve boiling the cans). In order to make the toffee, you take the can of sweetened condensed milk, place it in a deep saucepan full of water, then boil it for about 4 hours. You must not let the water boil down–refill it a bit every half hour or so. If you let the water boil down too far, there is a risk that the can will explode, which is obviously a very bad thing (think scalding and shrapnel).  Let the can cool, then open the can and voila, toffee!

Coffee or Cocoa Whipped Cream

1 cup (1/2 pint) heavy cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. cocoa powder or about 2/3 tsp. instant coffee (more or less to taste)

Whip up the cream, and when it’s almost set, add the sugar, vanilla and cocoa or coffee.

The original recipe calls for coffee flavoured whipped cream, but for those who aren’t coffee fans, cocoa whipped cream or just plain whipped cream would also be great!

Assembly:

Plain chocolate cupcake:

Cut a cone out of the middle of the cupcake like so:

Fill the hole with a scoop of toffee:

Top the toffee with a slice of banana:

Top with whipped cream! Yum!