Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Easy Banoffee Pie


Last time when I went to a morning tea gathering at school, one of the mum brought along a Banoffee pie.  They were saying that this was an American type of pie so I took a piece of it and it tasted pretty good.  It is basically a caramel tart topped with whipped cream and banana.  With the search of the internet, it is found that the birthplace of this pie actually come from The Hungry Monk restaurant from the UK.  The word banoffee means any food product that has the taste of banana and toffee.  It was created in the 1972 and it became popular in the America, Australia and India as well.  For more information please click here.  In Australia, caramel tart is very popular and it sometimes served with whipped cream.  When I went to boarding school, it would be everyone's heavenly day to have caramel tart for dessert.  To simplify the recipe, I use Top'n Fill caramel instead of the condensed milk.  If you wish, you can follow the traditional method to boil the tin for 1 1/2 hours to make the caramel.  Can you believe that such a yummy dessert only take 4 ingredients?

Banoffee Pie

1 tin of Nestle Top'n Fill Caramel
1 frozen pie crust
whipped cream
banana, sliced

Method:

  1. Bake the pie crust follow the direction of the package.  Just when the crust starting to turn brown, spread the caramel into the pie shell and baked for a further 5-8 minutes.  
  2. Cool pie to room temperature, spread with whipped cream and top with some sliced banana.  Chill before serving.


Friday, August 10, 2012

Homemade Orange and Lemon Marmalade


If you start making jam, it's unlikely that you'll ever stop.  I made enough jam to give to my family and to keep for myself.  Just when I want to pack up, my daughter's piano teacher gave me some homegrown orange and lemon again.  So this continue my jam making journey....

I didn't have enough orange to work out a recipe for marmalade the last time when I had those unwaxed organic oranges.  For full story, please click here. This year I had a bit of a trouble as I mistaken an orange looking lemon making the first batch of jam too tangy. So I made another lot and mix it with the first batch untill I'm happy with the taste. The addition of lemon to the marmalade makes it tastes different (the taste that I prefer) but you can omit that if you don't like it too tangy.  Mrs piano likes to have her marmalade with bacon and egg, I'd never tried that though.  I'd prefer to make my marmalade almond muffins again.

Orange and Lemon Marmalade
(bread machine method)

1/2 lemon, flush only, chopped
About 4 oranges, included the grated zest and chopped flush to make up 550g with the lemon flush
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 1/2 tbsp Jam Setta

Method:
Put the chopped fruit into the bread machine followed by sugar and Jam Setta.  Press the "jam" button and finish the cycle.  Pour hot jam into sterilised jar and seal.  Keep into the fridge to keep it fresh.