Banana Cream Pie

Bananas cause strong reactions in people. If you like them, I suggest you may enjoy my personal banana cream pie recipe. If you do not like bananas, don’t waste your time trying this, because it is indeed deeply banana flavored.

Most of the past recipes for this dessert that I’ve eaten have been tremendously over sweet, often using meringue, or heavily sweetened pudding. This one pushes towards a more refreshing note, though it doesn’t lack sweetness. There are three main ingredients, the pie crust, the pie filling and the topping. Chilling is part of the process– though it is not an intensive job to make this, it does need refrigerator time. 

First, make and prebake a simple crust. Not a crumb or cookie based or graham cracker based crust, instead a simple slightly salty plain crust pastry. 

1 1/2 c all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt,

1/2 tsp sugar

1/3 cup od cold butter, chopped up a bit

2 TB grapeseed or other flavorless oil

1/3 cup ice water with a squeeze of lemon or lime in it

Preheat oven to 423 F.

For fast production, place dry ingredients in your Cuisinart, throw in the butter and zap until finely mealy. Put in the oil with the machine still running. Stop and toss the result into a bowl, dripping or drizzling the lemon ice water in, while tossing the pastry crumbs with a fork. Treat tenderly and toss to combine until the crumbs have begun to gather. With your hands, gently press together this dough into a rough round shape, flatten with a light hand and then roll out on a preferably cold or cool surface. I love a flat circular pastry rolling bag for this, and a French or Chinese rolling pin.

 Keep your touch light, and when your crust is round and thin, settle it well into a 9″ pie pan. Prick it all about with a fork — you can use pie weights or beans to keep the crust perfectly unbulgy, or if you are like me, you will simply check on it in the oven after about five minutes and poke any bulging parts with your fork to make them collapse.  Place the pan in your preheated oven and bake until nicely browned, roughly ten minutes, then cool to room temperature.

Next, make the filling pudding by taking a stout cooking pot, and mixing together:

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup of sugar

3 tablespoons flour.

Mix thoroughly. Take 1 1/4 cups of milk and warm in the microwave about one minute, you want it warm but not steaming, or you will cook the flour in the dry mix too fast on contact and make it lumpy.

Take an egg and beat it to break up the structure a bit in a pyrex pint measuring cup using a fork– leave the fork in it.

 Slowly blend warmed milk into dry ingredients in pot. Then bring this mixture to a boil, cooking after lowering the heat so it doesn’t stick, for two minutes. Remove from heat. Temper hot mix into eggs, beating fast as you add each spoonfull so you don’t end up with curdled eggs. When you’ve mixed about half the hot material into the egg you can then mix the eggy part back into your pot. Turn stove back on and bring the mixture to a bubble, then remove from heat and allow to cool. While still warm, add a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoonful of vanilla extract. Turn into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap. When its heat is moderate, let it rest in fridge. 

When the cooked pudding is getting quite cool, (close to refrigerator interior temperature,) take three large ripe bananas and peel and slice them, drizzling lightly with lemon or lime juice. Fold into the cooled pudding mixture.

Take a cup and a half of extremely cold whipping cream, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a package of whipped cream stabilizer and three tablespoons of sugar, and whip together until well stiffened and easily forming peaks. 

Fill the cooled pastry shell with your banana and pudding mix, cover with the whipped cream and serve.

Here’s my pie waiting for the whipped cream….

This is a pie that must be stored in the refrigerator and kept cold. With the stabilized whipped cream, this pie will stay in fairly good shape in the fridge for perhaps three or four days. Some people like to add dark rum when whipping the cream for the topping, others like to drizzle some on the pie at serving. I think it’s just fine without! The bananas have a surprisingly emphatic presence in this pie.