Banana Toffee Pie

Yes, I DO sometimes make dessert. Like when I'm having company, for example, I try to remember to offer something sweet. It's almost always an afterthought, much to my poor chocolate-loving daughter's endless dismay. I'd just rather snuggle up with a bowl of plain Lay's or buttered popcorn than a handful of cookies or bowl of ice cream.

The local liquor store consortium publishes a monthly magazine, and it's glossy and beautiful and full of ads of new and delicious alcohols, and recipes. I can often find something interesting in it, and this month this recipe positively leaped out at me.

LCBO Food & Drink

And who can blame me?! Just look at that! No dealing with some blah bland pie crust, and a velvety smooth sweet toffee custard... mmmm. So heck yeah, I made this. I decided to make two changes, because I got it in my head that I wanted it to be a teensy bit like Southern Banana Pudding; I used Nilla Wafers instead of Ginger Snaps for the crust, and I made a meringue topping instead of using whipped cream. I had a TON of egg whites left over from various other projects, and I freaking adore meringue, so it was an easy choice.

Everything went pretty well; however, the recipe calls for doing something a little weird with the egg yolks, and adding them at the END of cooking. I don't think this did what it needed to do. Either that, or the time under the broiler to toast the meringue was my downfall, not sure, but it just didn't set properly. I cut into it, and boy, did I have goo all over the place.

I didn't get any exciting pics of the prep, I was in a hurry because I was ALSO making all the Banh Mi stuff. But trust me, it got eaten. It turned out I was super sad that I'd send home half of the leftovers with my parents. I obviously likewise didn't get any pics of us eating it, because that would've meant putting my fork down for a few seconds, and that wasn't going to happen.

Next time I make it I'm going to follow the original recipe as-is but add the eggs earlier, and maybe more cornstarch. And I'm not going to share it with anyone, I'm going to EAT THE WHOLE DAMN THING MYSELF. No really, it's that good, you should make it for someone special, it's super impressive. I almost made it again the next day, but I thought that would be a little excessive. If you haven't seen the LCBO Food and Drink before, they post digital copies, you should check it out. I actually considered squeezing some alcohol in this somewhere (I mean, my rum ball recipe is basically melted butter, sugar, Nilla Wafers, pecans, and rum, so I was almost there with this crust).  Maybe I'll save that for the 3rd iteration.