Banoffee is an invented word. It was coined in 1971, in an English restaurant kitchen, by squashing banana and toffee together to name a pie that combined them. The pie spread, the word stuck, and it now appears on menus in countries that have no idea where it came from. Ours is one of them.
At Dhi Ferrari Cakes the name covers a small family of things rather than a single dessert, and the toffee half is usually dulce de leche: condensed milk cooked slowly down until it turns to caramel.
The mini cake
The Banoffee Mini Cake is the version most people meet first. It starts from a fragrant cinnamon and ripe banana cake studded with chocolate chips, then takes a generous drizzle of dulce de leche over the top. The cinnamon is what makes it work: it stops the banana and caramel from collapsing into pure sweetness and gives the whole thing a warmer, rounder finish.
Each mini is one serving. An individual mini cake is $9, and trays of 6 and 12 sit on the same ladder as the rest of the mini cake range, so a mixed order costs the same as a matched one.
The dessert box, and why it is a plan for four
The Banoffee dessert box is a kilogram, and a kilogram box serves four people. That number matters more than it sounds. It is too much for one person and slightly awkward for two, which makes it the natural centre of a small evening rather than a solo purchase.
If you are the sort of person who has been meaning to see a friend properly for months, this is the practical version of that intention: a box, a table, four people, no cooking. Our dessert box page covers the range, and we have written more about how the boxes work.
The rest of the family
In the cabinet, the Banoffee Cookie Tart is a chocolate chip cookie baked into a crisp tart shell, filled with thick dulce de leche and topped with caramelised banana. It sits with the other mini desserts, all single servings.
From the made-to-order menu, the Banoffee Profiterole is a choux shell, which is the light hollow pastry pronounced shoo, filled with vanilla ice cream, then bananas caramelised with orange and rum and a dulce de leche sauce over the top. It is plated at the counter and arrives warm and cold at once.
And to drink, the Banoffee Cookie Thickshake is made with real bananas, a ribbon of dulce de leche, whipped cream and cookie crumbs.
An unhurried afternoon for two
Here is the order worth making with somebody else. One Banoffee Profiterole and one thickshake between two of you, put in the middle of the table, both halved. It takes about an hour if you let it, and it gives you the same flavour in two completely different states: one warm, spiced and boozy, one cold, thick and creamy.
Our tables move and seat groups of four to eight, the kitchen is open-plan so there is something to watch, and there are two low tables with high chairs if small people are coming. The place is dog friendly as well, with a water bowl and metal-legged tables for clipping a lead to. It is built for sitting rather than turning over.
If you liked it, look sideways
The same caramel runs through the Dulce Caramel Cake, a four-layer chocolate cake with dulce de leche between the layers, in a 15cm serving 12 to 15. The Carolina Choux builds dulce de leche mousse into choux pastry with a dark chocolate ganache montee, which is whipped ganache, light like a mousse. And for banana without the caramel, the Cuca Banana Cake from our travel cake range pairs ripe banana and chocolate chips with a buttery streusel crumble, in a 20cm loaf serving 8.
Ordering and collecting
Mini cakes and dessert boxes are made to order on a two-day lead time, with the checkout date picker showing only the dates the kitchen can meet. Cabinet items and drinks need no notice at all, and the made-to-order desserts take around ten minutes in store.
Collection only, from our patisserie inside The Welder at 20-26 Welles Street, Christchurch Central. We are open 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday and 10am to 3pm Saturday. For more on the drinks side, see our piece on thickshakes and on the tiramisu.
