Banana Cream Pie

If you have been following my blog, you know I don't bake cookies and tarts/pies that often. I find it very time consuming to bake a tart/pie, ie prepare the crust, chill the dough, blind-baking, leave to cool, prepare fillings and bake again. Since I have another bunch of bananas untouched, I attempted Annie's Banana Cream Pie since there's only one baking to be done.

I do not have shortening so I used butter instead. The dough was relatively soft and sticky, which was quite difficult to work with but after chilling in the fridge for an hour, it was manageable.

Cooking of the pudding was relatively easy too, just remember not to overheat the milk mixture, else you will end up with curdled eggs. Also, I added 1 tsp of lemon juice into the pudding, hoping that it will help to keep the bananas from turning brown (oxidation).

The crust was flaking despite the usage of butter, but after chilling in the fridge overnight, the crust turned soft. I thought the pudding compliments the bananas but unfortunately no one except me like this pie so I won't be making this again for my family. Do give this recipe a try if you like pies/tarts.

Banana Cream Pie

Check out Annie's blog for step-by-step pictures.

(makes 2 x 9"pies)
Pie Crust Ingredients

(A)

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

220g butter

(B)

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup milk

Pie Crust Method

1. Rub ingredients A together to form a shaggy dough in a medium bowl.
2. Mix ingredients B together to form a paste in another bowl.
3. Add B to A and mix gently with a spatula until it forms a dough. If it’s too wet, add more flour to the dough to get a nice soft dough. Do not overwork the dough.
4. Form two balls, cover them in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least an hour.
5. Preheat oven to 400 F (210 C).
6. Roll out your dough into a round, about 1/8 inch thick, dusting with flour to keep it from sticking. Place dough rounds on your pie pan and press into pan and crimp edges to the side of the pan. Dock with a fork all around the crust.
7. Cover with foil or parchment paper and cover with pie weights. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
8. Remove foil/parchment paper and bake for another 10-12 minutes till golden brown.
9. Cool pie crust.

Pudding ingredients

4 cups milk

100g butter

1 cup sugar

6 heaping Tbsp all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

6 egg yolks

Pudding method

1. Heat on stove 4 cups milk and 1/2 cup butter over med-low heat in large sauce pan.
2. Mix in another bowl the sugar, flour, salt and yolks. Add to this mixture enough milk from the sauce pan to make a paste.
3. Add paste to milk/butter mixture on stove. Make sure the milk mixture is not too hot when adding the paste or the eggs will curdle. Whisk mixture constantly over med-low heat until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil.
4. Remove from heat immediately and stir in vanilla essence. Let it cool slightly. If you want a smoother pudding, strain it so that the bits of cooked egg will be strained out.

To assemble banana cream pie

1. Slice 5-8 bananas (depending on size of bananas) in half length-wise. You can choose to slice them into rounds but I find that the pie slices hold better when you slice in half and lay them in circles around the crust. Cut as needed to fit all the bananas into the bottom of the pie crust.
2. Pour warm pudding over bananas until the bananas are covered and the pudding is almost at the top of the crust.
3. Cool in refrigerator until set, about 2-3 hours.
4. Just before serving, whip some heavy cream (about 1/2-1 cup depending on how much whipped cream you like), with 2 Tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp vanilla. Spread whipped cream over pie. (I omit this)
5. Slice into wedges and enjoy!