Jumping back into the cook book challenge this week, I turned to a book that fills me with indecisions like few others. As the name suggests, Dream Desserts is filled with dreamy recipes for every occasion. From winter warmers to light summer desserts, from the simplest of cakes to decadent desserts that require a bit of know-how, this book has it all. What's more is that this book has a lot of desserts that are quite different from what I would usually do, or create, or crave, myself, so it encourages me to try some new things.

This week I decided to try a dessert I've always heard about but had no idea what it actually was:Banoffee Pie

Or a Boston Banoffee Pie, to be exact. I have no idea what makes it specifically Boston-esque as I can't see how this differs from the traditional English version. Semantics aside, this pie is made of nom. 

If you have a food processor, making the pastry base is a cinch. If, like me, you don't, rubbing the butter into the flour is going to be more arduous and messy than your basic scone dough requires, but the result will be worth it. 

For the best short crust pastry, don't over work it. It's ready when it forms clumps when pushed together like so. 

The recipe says to use a fluted flan dish, but any tin or ramekin or pie dish will do. If you use a pie dish, you can have a bit of fun with the crust.

We got all excited about the caramel and if it wasn't so piping hot, it may never have made it into the pastry case. After burning my mouth on a taste-test, it was deemed that the case was the best home for the caramel. For now. 

Once it's cooled, it's decorated with bananas, cream and chocolate. I used Cadbury Flake to top this one off, because nom. 

I had such a disasterous day in the kitchen making this one, so to have something pie-ish by the end of it was a relief. 

This baby ended up as dessert for us for the next three meals. It was delicious. While I like bananas, I usually have little desire to put them in desserts. They're not my absolute favourite fruit, but I have to say I loved them in this. In future I would probably include more than one ring of garnish of them. The bananas complimented it so well and cut through the richness of the toffee. 

Here's the recipe from Dream Desserts:

You'll find the printable version of this recipe here.