Holly Hendry’s mum’s banoffee pie recipe

Gorge on Holly Hendry’s glutinous recipe for banoffee pie, credited to her mother. As featured in our monthly Artist’s Palate series, a Wallpaper* homage to our favourite contemporary art

holly hendry recipe for banoffee pie for artist's palate
‘Plastic Baroque’ spoon, price on request, by James Shaw. ‘Alvar Aalto Collection’ vase, £140, by Alvar Aalto, for Iittala, from The Conran Shop. Interiors: Olly Mason; Entertaining Director: Melina Keays
(Image credit: Neil Godwin at Future Studios for Wallpaper*)

Multilayered, bodily and texturally eclectic: this could just as well describe Holly Hendry’s art as her chosen dish for this month’s Artist’s Palate. The British artist – who has a similar way with words as she does with sculpture – takes sickly-sweet to a new intensity in describing her mother’s banoffee pie recipe: ‘I like that it is a textural masterpiece which takes you through all the layers of imagined production and consumption – whipped, smashed, squashed, chopped, chewed, savoured, swallowed, digested – all before you’ve got it in your gob. Buttery, gelatinous, glutinous-ness to gorge on.’ 

Hendry, who was profiled in Wallpaper’s October 2019 issue, is best known for inventive material concoctions and cartoon-esque, site-responsive sculptures. Whether it’s installing a giant conveyor belt of ‘skin’ encrusted with anatomical detritus, or memorialising a Crossrail digger lost in the line of duty, Hendry has a flair for animating the inanimate, dissecting history and science, and delving deep under the skin of her subjects. On 28 January 2022, the artist will open the London exhibition, ‘Fatty Acids’ at Stephen Friedman Gallery, which explores the ethos of the Bauhaus school. 

Recipe for Holly Hendry’s mum’s banoffee pie

Ingredients

Half a pack of digestive biscuits
75g butter
1 can of condensed milk
2 ripe bananas
Double or whipping cream
A small amount of grated dark chocolate (and/ or nutmeg) to sprinkle on top

Method

Smash the biscuits and combine with melted butter. Press the mix into the bottom of a tin and chill. Simmer boiling water in a pan on the hob. Slightly open the condensed milk can and place in boiling water until the milk caramelises. Chop the bananas and place onto the buttery biscuit base, covering it. Add the caramel on top of the bananas. Whip the cream and smother over caramel and top with grated chocolate.

INFORMATION
Holly Hendry: ‘Fatty Acids’, 28 January – 26 February 2022, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Londonstephenfriedman.com

A version of this article appears in the January 2022 issue of Wallpaper* (W*273), on newsstands and available to subscribers

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Harriet Lloyd-Smith was the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.

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