Banoffee

A classic. Based largely on this recipe:

100g butter, melted
250g digestive biscuits (I've used biscuits sablés in France)
400g tin of condensed milk—do not open the tin yet!
2-3 bananas, sliced up
300ml double cream, well whipped
100g chocolate, grated

Remove the label and as much of the glue as you can from the tin of condensed milk, then boil for around 2-3 hours. This will turn the condensed milk into caramel. If you can't wait for this long, you could probably buy a tin of caramel somewhere. Crush the biscuits or throw them into a food processor and pulse until crumbed, then mix well with the melted butter. Press into the bottom and sides a 23cm cake tin and put in the fridge to set. When the condensed milk is ready, leave it to cool for a bit, then spoon over the biscuit base, place the banana slices on top (you could also put the bananas down first and then the caramel—up to you), then finally top with the cream and sprinkle the grated chocolate over the top.

You might not want to eat anything too sweet for a while afterwards, but it's worth it.

Banana Bread

I like banana-based desserts, for some reason. Here is a banana bread recipe I kind of patched together which worked wonderfully well. Enjoy.

You will need:

4 overripe bananas (should be about 400 ml when mashed) + 85 ml milk + 1 1/2 tsp lemon juice
OR
5-6 overripe bananas (should be about 550 ml when mashed), no milk
285 g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup castor sugar
1/4 cup brown/muscovado sugar
110 g butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs

Preheat oven to about 180 degrees. Grease a bread tin, about 20cm x 12.5 cm. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, in a smaller bowl. In a separate, larger bowl, cream the sugar and butter, then mix in together with the eggs, mashed bananas, vanilla extract, and cinnamon (and milk mixture, if you're using it). Fold the flour mixture into the banana/egg/sugary mixture, then pour into the bread tin. Shove in the oven for about 1 hour 15 minutes, or until golden brown and baked through (poke with a toothpick or something thin - if it comes out clean, your loaf is ready). Take it out, put to one side to cool down for 15-20 minutes, then remove from the tin carefully and leave to cool on a rack. Serve buttered and delicious.

Enjoy.