Banoffee Cheesecake

Before presenting you with my Banoffee Cheesecake recipe I quickly have to announce something very special for me.

Two weeks ago I received an email from a journalist of the Austrian weekly magazine “Cooking” and she asked me if I was interested in an article about me and my blog. Of course I was and here it is now. It can be found on page 45 in today’s edition of the magazine and it tells about my fascination concerning blogging and what is important for me as a blogger. As you can imagine, I’m incredibly proud to get this kind of press coverage after only 5 months of blogging and I’m full of motivation for the near future. 🙂

article in magazine Cooking – Download German

I’m terribly sorry, if you don’t understand a word, but this is an Austrian magazine (in German) and unfortunately there is no English translation. But nevertheless, I just wanted to insert the image.

Now, let me give you my Banoffee Cheesecake recipe. I ate my first Banoffee Pie when I was in Ireland. It was in one of those really cozy small pubs, with traditional Irish music and lots of ale. Apart from the typical Irish atmosphere I was also served a traditional Irish dessert, a Banoffee Pie. I loved this delicious combination of crunchy pie crust, bananas, toffee (hence the name: bananas and toffee) and cream right from the start. In my recipe, however, I will present a slight variation of this old Irish pie, a Banoffee Cheesecake.

Well yes, I admit, the whole cake is loaded and loaded with calories. But what the heck! There are a few occasions when you can allow yourself to indulge your sweet tooth. And Easter definitely is one of those. If you still feel like saving a few calories you can use only little toffee cream and only little whipped cream.

Banoffee Cheesecake

250 g (8 ounces) graham crackers, crushed
160 g (2/3 cups) butter
50 g (1/2 cup) dark chocolate, coarsely grated
1 banana
½ lemon (juice)
350 g (1 ½ cups) cream cheese
250 g (1 cup) sour cream
100 g (1/2 cup) sugar
2 eggs
vanilla extract
340 g condensed milk
4 bananas
1 lemon (juice)
¼ l (1 cup) whipping cream

Crush the graham crackers. Melt the butter. Combine the coarsely grated chocolate with the crushed crackers and the butter. Transfer everything into a tart tin and press onto the bottom and to the side.

Squash the banana in a bowl, using a fork. Sprinkle with lemon juice immediately. Add the cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, eggs and vanilla extract and whisk until you get a smooth mixture. Pour everything into the tart tin. Bake in the preheated oven (140°C, 280°F, gas mark 1) for about 50 minutes. Leave to cool, preferably overnight.

If you have a tin of condensed milk, put it into a pan and fill the pan with water (to about ¾ of the height of the tin). Cook for about 3 hours. Make sure to refill some water if necessary. If you can only get condensed milk in tubes (as is the case in central Europe), press the condensed milk into a jam jar and close it tightly. Also cook in boiling water for 3 hours until the condensed milk has turned into a golden brown toffee cream. You can also cook the condensed milk in the oven (again in an ovenproof dish with plenty of water, cover the dish). Allow to cool completely. In some parts of the world you get ready-made toffee creme (dulce de leche), which you can also use.

The toffee cream might have become too solid to be spreadable. In this case mix it with a few drops of water, just enough to be able to spread it on the cheesecake. Use only as much toffee cream as you want. Use less if you don’t want it too sweet.

Peel the bananas and halve them lengthwise. Sprinkle with lemon juice immediately. Arrange them on the cheesecake. Whip the cream until stiff and spread it on the bananas. Decorate with the grated chocolate.

And here is the print version of the recipe: