What you must never add to a Sussex banoffee pie if you want it to be perfect

Nigel created the famous banana and toffee dessert with chef Ian Dowding at the Hungry Monk restaurant in Jevington – a small village between Eastbourne and Lewes – in 1972.

The pair were generous and shared the recipe in a best selling cook book. It was quickly emulated appearing on menus across the globe, but it annoyed Mackenzie that some people made the dessert with a crushed biscuit base rather than the rich shortcrust pastry base the original recipe called for.

So here, to put all doubts to rest is the original recipe for banoffi pie – as it was first named, by Ian Dowsing – the chef who co-created it:

Banoffi Pie, the original recipe:

You will need a 10 x 1 & ½ inch (deep) loose bottomed flan tin and your oven preheated to: 180C / gas mark 4

For the Pastry

250g / 9 oz plain flour25g / 1 oz icing sugar125g / 4 & ½ oz butter1 egg and 1 egg yolk

Making the Pastry

Place the flour and sugar in a bowl, cut the butter into cubes and then rub it in to the flour / sugar until it resembles fine bread crumbs.

Work in the egg to form a paste.

Chill for half an hour then roll out to the thickness of a pound coin and line the flan tin.

Prick the base, line with parchment paper and weigh down with dry beans.

Cook for fifteen minutes then remove the beans and paper.

Put the pastry case back into the oven and cook until it is evenly golden.

Remove from the oven and cool.

To Assemble

1 & ½ tins of banoffi toffee (see note on boiling the tins).5-6 ripe bananas425 ml / ¾ pint of double cream1 teaspoon of instant coffee1 dessertspoon of caster sugarA pinch of ground coffee

Putting it Together

Carefully spread the toffee over the pastry base.

Peel and split the bananas lengthways and arrange them on top of the toffee, (see how they fit the curve of the pastry – that’s why God made bananas curved).

Whip the cream with the instant coffee (if they are granules they will dissolve as you whip the cream) and the sugar until it just holds its shape – take care not to over whip it.

Spread the cream over the bananas right up to the pastry edge then sprinkle sparingly with the ground coffee.

If you are not serving it immediately cover first with some baking parchment or greaseproof paper directly onto the cream and trim the edges then wrap in cling film. It does not lend itself to being frozen.

And there you have it. The original Sussex recipe for an iconic dessert.

Have you read: Read the story of how banoffee pie was first created