The History Of A Famous Pudding

As most of us dessert lovers know, banoffee pie is a delicious dish generally made up of a crushed biscuit base, chilled caramel (the toffee part), topped with slices of bananas and cream and usually finished off with a dusting of melted chocolate or shavings. This article looks at the history of this wonderful concoction.

Many people accept that the dessert’s creators were the owner and chef of a small restaurant in England called The Hungry Monk. They were called Ian Dowding and Nigel Mackenzie and they came up with the recipe in 1972.

Dowding apparently thought of the idea after seeing an American dish called “Blum’s Coffee Toffee Pie” which consisted of smooth toffee topped with coffee flavoured cream. According to Dowding though, this recipe rarely worked – it either didn’t set properly or dried “like concrete”.

Using the BTCP idea, Dowding and Mackenzie altered it slightly and instead of using a coffee topping, used bananas topped with normal cream. They even created a word for this toffee and banana flavour – originally “banoffi” but over the years it’s transformed to “banoffee” and is still used in the English language to describe a toffee and banana taste.

So they added the new Banoffee Pie to their menu and it instantly became so popular that diners would actually request table bookings only if this particular dessert was on the menu. In fact, it became such a hit that they simply could not remove it from the menu.

During the next couple of years or so other local restaurants began to sell their version of the pudding. Dowding said that he had also heard people saying that it was beginning to get sold in the US and Australia. It looked like the dessert had really taken off, and during the late 1970s banoffee pie was a great selling dessert in India, fuelled by the young European backpackers of the day.

In 1994 some supermarkets began to sell banoffee pie, calling it an “American pie”. Wanting to prove it’s origins, Mackenzie offered a 10,000 prize to anyone who could produce a pre-1972 menu with the pudding listed. To my knowledge nobody has come forward.

Over the years banoffee pie became more and more popular and is now served all over the world.

For a delicious banoffee pie recipe click the link!