Hellooooo Whoopie Wednesday! Banoffee Whoopie Pie?
If you don’t know, Banoffee Pie is a British invention: a biscuit crust filled with squidgy, almost custardy caramel (very similar to dulce de leche) and topped with sliced banana and whipped cream. It’s strangely alluring, unbelievably rich, and ultimately a polarising experience, so much so that in the movie Love Actually, Kiera Knightley’s character attempts bribery with banoffee pie then moments later apologises for her “terrible taste in pie”.
I’m not sure what splits the population into banoffee lovers and banoffee haters, whether it’s the banana, the banana plus the caramel, or the fat laden sweetness which could conceivably be dubbed “cloying”. I’m not sure because even though I freely admit banoffee is probably the most sickly of all the pies, I still rather like the combination. So it seemed a great candidate for a Whoopie Pie.
Actually I think it’s a bit of a winner. The banana part is in the cakey Banana Whoopie cookie, and then whipped marscapone holds an oozy centre of caramel inside. You get all the banoffee taste with a fraction of the calories of the pie equivalent, and the soft cookie, gooey caramel and creamy marscapone make a lovely combination of textures. If you wanted you could give the richness an extra lift by adding a slice of fresh banana (tossed in lemon juice to prevent browning) along with the filling. I didn’t have the option – I didn’t have an extra banana!
Banoffee Whoopie Pies
Banana Buttermilk Whoopie “cookies”
ingredients
125g butter
1/4 cup brown sugar, well packed
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 banana, mashed
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk
mixing
Pipe 4cm rounds of the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with bake paper, leaving at least 3cm between each “cookie” for spreading. You will need to do two baking sheets of approximately 20-22 “cookies” each.Bake the cookies at 180 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes or until slightly firm to the touch. The cookies will still be “whispering” when you take them out of the oven. Let cool on the tray.
Toffee Marscapone filling
200g (1/2 a tin) of Nestle Top n Fill Caramel*
25g salted butter, melted
250g marscapone
Place the caramel into a small bowl and whip until smooth. Stir in the melted butter until completely combined, the refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Whip the marscapone with a wire whisk for about 30 seconds until the marscapone starts to stiffen. Load into a piping bag fitte with a star nozzle. Pipe a swirl of marscapone around the outside of half the cold cookies (about 12g of marscapone per Whoopie Pie). Spoon about 10g of the caramel into the centre of the marscapone swirl. Top the filled cookie with another cookie as a lid.
*if you can’t get this product wherever you live, you could substitute dulce de leche (if that is available), but it’s kind of fun to make your own. Simply submerge a tin of sweetened condensed milk in a saucepan of water (take the label off first!), bring to the boil and simmer for three hours, topping up the water from time to time so that the tin is always completely submerged. Cool completely, open the can, and voila! Squidgy caramel!
Enjoy!xxx
