Banoffee pie is a British dessert consisting of a buttery shortbread crust that is smeared with dulce de leche, slices of fresh banana, cream, and chocolate. It kind of reminds me of Million Dollar Shortbread, if you have ever had that before, but with bananas. Which is to say that it is delicious. For my dad’s birthday, I wanted to make this dessert, because one of his favorite desserts is banana meringue pie, and he loves dark chocolate, so I wanted to combine aspects of those two desserts together into one thing. Banoffee already pairs banana with chocolate, so that checks off two parts. In lieu of the meringue, I went with some bruleed bananas on top, to still have that toasty sugar effect without having to introduce meringue into this dessert – since I am making this for my almost 70 year old father’s birthday, the last thing I want to do is kill him with sugar overload, which meringue basically is. Instead of a meringue or even traditional dulce de leche, I opted to use cajeta, which is like dulce de leche in that it is a slowly caramelized milk situation, but it uses goat’s milk. I went with cajeta specifically because I love that tang of the goat milk and it helps round out the generally sweet banana. I also used dark chocolate, since it is my dad’s favorite, and since it also curbs the inherent sweetness in the cajeta and the bananas, making sure that this is one balanced take on a banoffee pie!

For the components, we have a shortbread crust, a chocolate ganache filling, the homemade cajeta, and a disk of bruleed bananas on top. One potential danger in banoffee pie is that it can be really sweet and sugary – my goal with my components is to counteract that wherever I can. Sugar is used in three components: the shortbread, the cajeta, and the bruleed bananas. So that leaves one component where we can nix any additional sugar – the chocolate component. In this case, we have a dark chocolate ganache filling that also uses chocolate liquor, as the bitterness of the liquor also helps tone down the sweetness of the chocolate and allowing the ganache to set with this silky soft texture, similar to Japanese nama chocolate. I will warn that this recipe is highly time-consuming – you need to rest the shortbread dough before baking it, the ganache filling needs time to solidify, the cajeta is nearly an hour of hands-on stirring. The only component that really takes very minimal time is bruleeing the bananas for the garnish on top. Outside of that, expect each component in this recipe to take at least 1 hour to execute, so keep that in mind and give yourself at least a day prior to your intended serving time to prep everything. That and make sure you have a blowtorch for the brulee on top!

Makes 1 6-inch pie or 6-8 servings:
For the shortbread crust:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 stick unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1 egg yolk

In a food processor, blend together the flour, sugar, butter, and salt until a fine crumb forms. To that, add in the egg yolk, mixing until everything pulls together into a dough. Refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8-inch thickness, Drape the dough into a 6-inch ring mold that has been placed onto a lined sheet tray, pressing the dough against the sides and trimming off any excess dough. Freeze the dough for 1 hour. Then weigh down the dough with parchment and baking weights and bake for 30 minutes at 400 degrees F. Remove the baking weights and parchment and bake the tart shell for another 10 minutes at 350 degrees F. Allow the shell to fully cool before unmolding.

For the chocolate ganache filling:
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1 tbsp chocolate liquor

In a pot, heat up the heavy cream, butter, and salt. Once everything comes up to a simmer, take the pot off heat and add in the chocolate chips. Allow the chocolate to sit in the mixture for 1 minute before stirring to combine. Finish with the liquor. Pour the mixture into the baked shell and freeze everything together for at least 2 hours.

For the cajeta:
6oz can evaporated goat’s milk
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup dark brown sugar(preferably canela but any sugar can work)
1/8 tsp cinnamon
a pinch of salt
1 tsp gelatin powder + 2 tbsp cold water

In a nonstick pot, stir down the goat milk with baking soda first until it reaches a dark brown color – this can take up to 40 minutes. Then add in the other ingredients and continue to stir for another 15 minutes. Allow the mixture to cool down to room temperature before attempting to use.

For the bruleed bananas:
4 bananas, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 cup granulated sugar