This picture shows what happens to condensed milk if you boil it in the tin for at least 1,5 hours. I must confess I find condensed milk a bit gross: the substance, the colour, the smell and taste brrr (like something that has gone off, while in fact you can keep it forever). But when we saw our friend chef James (‘look at that!’) Martin turn this horrible stuff into something that looked delicious and gooey, we just had to try it. Gooey does not gross me out, I love gooey and chewy. So from horrible thick sweet milk to wonderful toffee in 1,5 hours. Could it be that simple?

We took our directions from James and did as follows:

1. Place the unopened tin of condensed milk into a lidded saucepan and cover completely with water.
2. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, cover with the lid and simmer for at least 1,5 hours, making sure the can is covered with water during this whole period or the can can explode!!!
3. Remove the condensed milk from the water and leave until cool enough to open the can.

It works like a charm! And it tastes deliciously like toffee. What a great invention. You can make several cans of toffee in advance and open them when you want to make a pie.The toffee stuff is mostly used to make something called Banoffi Pie (or Banoffee Pie). It’s a mixture of toffee, bananas and cream. There are lots of recipes you can find on the web, but it originates from a restaurant in East Sussex called The Hungry Monk. You can find the original recipe for Banoffi pie on the hungry monk website . I made a small Banoffi Pie using the recipe. James Martin also made something with the toffee that looked very tasty: a banoffi cheesecake with chocolate sauce. I haven’t tried it yet but you can find the recipe on the BBC website.