Banoffee Coffee Squares

Has it really been a whole week since the last Vegan MoFo Iron Chef challenge?  Apparently it has.

I had a few bananas sitting on my kitchen bench that were just passed that pleasant eating stage but not yet at banana bread stage.  So when I found out that the 2 ingredients for the Vegan MoFo Iron Chef Challenge #2 were bananas and coffee I knew that I just had to give it a try.

My offering:  Banoffee Coffee Squares!

Ingredients
⅓ cup coffee (how strong you make it is up to you)
60gm Vegan margarine
1 cup dates (100gm)
½ cup Brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 ripe bananas, mashed (200gm, 3/4 cup)

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup castor sugar
125gm Vegan margarine

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Line a shallow baking tray.  (Mine was 17cm x27cm - weird numbers!)
3. Reserve 2 tablespoons of coffee and set aside.  Combine the rest of the coffee in a pot with the 60gm margarine, dates, brown sugar and vanilla essence.  Heat until the margarine is melted. Reduce the heat and simmer for ~ 8 minutes until the dates are all squishy.  Set aside.
4. Mix the flour, baking powder and castor sugar together.  Add the margarine and cut in or rub with finger tips.  Add the 2 tablespoons of coffee and cut in with a knife.  Kneed together briefly to combine.
5. Take ¾ of the dough and press into the baking tray.
6. Mix the mashed bananas into the date mixture.
7. Spread the date mixture over the base.
8. Take the remaining ¼ of the dough and drop/crumble small piece of it over the date mixture.
9. Bake for ~ 22 minutes.  (I baked mine for 25 minutes and I think the base was just a few minutes overdone.

These are perfect with a cup of coffee (or tea in my case).