Now you tell me

Four hours. Fours hours I spent carefully tending to a pan full of boiling water as I slowly caramelised a tin of condensed milk, prime ingredient in the BBC's pecan banoffee pie recipe.

The end result was worth it, although I couldn't resist making a couple of minor alterations to the recipe. Substituting pecans with maltesers and chocolate buttons for example, and using chocolate digestive biscuits for the base (sweet tooth? Me?). The final product received near universal praise from those I forced it upon (as though after four hours I would take "no" for an answer).

But four needless hours I spent.

Why needless?

Clearly I must confess my ignorance of the contents of the supermarket shelves. It's possible to purchase tins of pre-caramelised condensed milk. Who knew? More importantly, why didn't the BBC tell me?

I'd probably be more upset at this discovery where I not still experiencing the rosy glow of a post chocolate banoffee pie sugar high.

Mmm. Chocolate.