Banana cream pie

I've never made a pie before and was so excited to finally try to make one. Too many pies to choose from - cherry pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie...I decided on a banana cream pie because we had too many bananas + A and I had this AMAZING banana cream pie in Maui. The shop was called Maui Pie. And it did what it said on the tin. It was a quaint little shop in Kihei near our Airbnb. We got there near shop closing time and the server apologised for cutting a "smaller slice than usual", and proceeded to give us an extra slice for free. These were American sizes, and I could not distinguish which the smaller slice was. And we just had dinner. We thought yea breakfast sorted but alas we inhaled them. Breakfast not sorted.

I received a request yesterday from a friend (love you, I think you're possibly the only person reading this by choice). She wanted me to rate the recipes according to taste + difficulty because she's really not done much baking in the past. I'd say this recipe is probably a medium difficulty because there are so many components and things can go wrong at each step. But super tasty? 10/10 tasty? I love cream in all forms.

There are essentially 3 components to this pie. Well 4, but that includes slicing bananas.

1. Pie crust - I saw a few recipes that recommended using vegetable shortening but I've never used it before so I used an all butter one from https://www.inspiredtaste.net/22662/flaky-pie-crust-recipe/ Love that they have a video and explain a little about the importance of cold butter and keeping things as dry as possible. I thought my dough was too wet even though I only added the 4 tablespoons of ice water but it turned out fine!

2. Filling - the most tricky part is tempering the eggs which means to warm them so that they don't scramble. More details to follow. https://www.spendwithpennies.com/banana-cream-pie/

3. Whipped cream - I suppose you can buy a store bought one but I wanted to make everything by hand so bought double cream and whipped it myself. The key is to keep everything cold. I put the whisks and bowl in the fridge about 30mins before whipping but saw some guy on TV add some ice to the cream to keep it cold. My sister says sugar also "stabilises the cream" whatever that means but I added a tablespoon just so it wouldn't fail. Also remember not to overwhip as it might turn to butter! https://www.spendwithpennies.com/make-perfect-whipped-cream-every-time/

I also needed a tin to bake this beauty in. According to my research, pies can be baked in a tart tin or pie dish. Pie dishes are normally 9" and don't have the pretty fluted sides nor the loose base to easily transfer the pie; whilst tart tins come in all sizes and can have a removable base. I decided to buy a tart tin for the versatility and also a 7" one since we only had 2 people to feed.

I also read that pie crust recipes are normally for 2 9" crusts or 3 7" crusts. For the filling, halving the recipe should fill a 7" pie as they are normally more shallow.

So much prep to do this pie had to turn out right!!! And it did imo. A says this is now his favourite recipe. Take that however you may.

Let's get started. Pie pastry.

All Butter Flaky Pie Crust by Adam and Joanne Gallagher

I made the full recipe and divided it into 3. 2 are currently sitting in the freezer (they can keep for up to 3 months) awaiting my next inspired pie filling. I'm thinking cherry.

The recipe mentioned 2 methods - one via a food processor and one by hand. I did the former because I didn't have a fancy pastry blender and didn't want my hands to make the butter too warm.

2 1/2 cups (325 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar, optional didn't use this

1 cup (230 grams) very cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

4 to 8 tablespoons ice water

I also made and blind-baked the crust the day before I made the filling (and ate the pie)

Making the dough

1. Add 1 1/2 cups flour, salt and sugar (optional) to a food processor. Pulse 2 to 3 times until combined.

They explained that they didn't use all the flour to ensure that every particle of flour is coated with fat to prevent the development of too much gluten...SCIENCE! Magical. I will not argue.

2. Scatter butter cubes over flour and process until a dough or paste begins to form, about 15 seconds. There should be no uncoated flour.

I recommend cutting the butter just before this step to ensure it's cold. Or cut it and put it back in the fridge until ready to use. The butter-sticking-to-knife situation does not help.

3. Scrape bowl, redistribute the flour-butter mixture then add remaining 1 cup of flour. Pulse 4 to 5 times until flour is evenly distributed. Dough should look broken up and a little crumbly.

I didn't take any photos of the dough but check out their video although mine looked like larger chunks than theirs

4. Transfer to a medium bowl then sprinkle ice water over mixture - start with 4 tablespoons and add from there. Using a rubber spatula, press the dough into itself. The crumbs should begin to form larger clusters. If you pinch some of the dough and it holds together, it’s ready. If the dough falls apart, add 2 to 4 more tablespoons of water and continue to press until dough comes together.

I added 4 tbsps at the get go and the dough was already pretty wet so I thought I probably overdid it but it turned out ok! Perhaps my egg was bigger than theirs. I suggest starting with 3 tbsps perhaps. If you think the dough is too wet, you can put it back into the food processor, add more flour and re-blitz.

5. Remove dough from bowl and place in a mound on a clean surface. Work the dough just enough to form a ball. Cut ball in half then form each half into discs. Wrap each disc with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour, and up to 2 days. You can also freeze it for up to 3 months (just thaw it overnight in the fridge before using).

1 went into the fridge and 2 into the freezer.

Rolling + pre-baking the dough

I merged the steps because this pie required the crust to be blind-baked

1. Remove the dough discs from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 5 minutes.

2. Lightly flour work surface, top of dough and rolling pin. Then use rolling pin to roll out dough to a 12-inch circle (about 1/8-inch thick). Be sure to check if the dough is sticking to the surface below - add a small amount of flour when necessary.

I didn't measure the thickness and probably rolled it out too thin hence there were cracks everywhere...I find this step pretty tough and definitely need to work more with rolling pins. Great thing about this dough is that if it cracks you can just pinch it back together or break off pieces from other places to gift the thin areas

3. Check for size by inverting pie dish over dough round. Look for a 1-inch edge around the pie dish. To transfer dough to dish, starting at one end, roll dough around rolling pin then unroll over dish.

This step was tricky. After rolling the dough onto the pin, I unrolled the dough whilst leaning on the tin so some places broke oops. Try and hover over the tin as you roll it out.

4. Gently press dough down into dish so that it lines the bottom and sides of the dish. (Be careful not to pull or stretch the dough). Then, use a knife or pair of kitchen scissors to trim dough to within 1/2-inch of the edge of the dish.

I 100% overstretched the dough. Because I used a fluted tin, this step was extra tricky. I watched a video after I botched mine and the trick is to take some excess dough and use it to mould into the tin so it wouldn't have your fingerprints. But it's on the inside of the pie so who will see it anyway. They also recommended rolling the pin over the tin when you're done inside of cutting it and that will remove the excess dough.

5. You can decorate the edge as you like. They recommended folding the edge of dough underneath itself so that it creates a thicker, 1/4-inch border that rests on the lip of the dish. Then, crimp edges by pressing the pointer finger of one hand against the edge of the dough from the inside of the dish while gently pressing with two knuckles of the other hand from the outside. I just left mine as it already had the fluted edge.

6. Pierce the bottom of the crust with a fork. This prevent air pockets or bubbles from forming while baking.

7. Line the crust with two sheets of aluminum foil. (Be sure to push foil against the edges of the crust). Then, fill foil with dried rice, dried beans or pie weights. Refrigerate 30 minutes or freeze for 10 minutes, or until firm to the touch.

I used baking paper and couldn't really push it to the edges completely. I think they used 2 sheets of foil cos it breaks more easily. I filled mine with very old brown rice. You can't use the rice again but you can keep it and always use them for blind-baking. Refrigerate to keep the butter cold!

8. Heat the oven to 425 degrees F and place a baking sheet on a middle oven rack.

About 220C. The baking sheet is so the pie bakes on something hot for even baking. I just used my baking tray

10. Place pie crust onto preheated baking sheet and reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees F. Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until the crust is golden.

About 200-205C. I don't see this step in other recipes but I just followed. It was difficult to see the crust under the rice.

11. Make an egg wash by whisking one egg yolk and 1 tablespoon of cream in a small bowl. Then, remove rice, beans or pie weights and foil from pie crust. Brush the bottom and sides of the crust with egg wash. Bake until egg wash is dry and shiny, 3 to 5 minutes. Cool crust completely before filling.

I didn't do this step but instead baked with the rice for 15 mins (step above), removed the rice, and baked for another 15-20 mins until golden brown.

Because of the loose base, when removing the rice, I accidentally pushed it up and I guess the pastry was still soft hence it cracked on the right. And the pastry obviously shrank because I pulled at it a lot. But I think it's ok for a first attempt?? Also, had some extra pastry so rolled it out and topped with kaya and parmesan (separately), baked for 12 mins, and it was PRETTY TASTY.

Left it to cool then went to the fridge overnight. Too much excitement for the day.

Banana cream pie by Holly at Spend With Pennies

The next day. I halved the ingredients and measured in grams. Again, she has a video with her tempering the eggs which is good to watch if you've never done it before like me

1 single pie crust baked

⅔ cup sugar 68g (1/3 cup sugar)

¼ cup cornstarch this is the equivalent corn flour in the UK. 15g (1/8 cup)

½ teaspoon salt a pinch

2 ⅓ cups whole milk about 288ml (1 1/6 cup. I always use semi-skimmed cos that's what I drink)

4 eggs beaten 2 eggs

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla 3/4 tsp

3 tablespoons butter about 21g

3 large bananas just used 1 lol I started this recipe to get rid of bananas...sure...

1 cup heavy cream whipped 1/2 cup

I also used 1 tbsp of granulated sugar for the whipped cream. I've seen recipes use icing sugar as well

I would get all the ingredients ready i.e. crack the eggs into a bowl and measure out the butter before starting step 1 just to reduce the time stress

1. In a small saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, salt and milk. Whisk over medium heat until hot and bubbly. Let boil 1 minute and remove from heat.

Takes a while. Keep an eye when it starts getting hot. I continued to whisk when it was boiling so couldn't tell when it was 1 minute but it started getting slightly thick and that's when I stopped.

2. Whisk ½ cup of the hot mixture into the eggs a spoonful at a time until incorporated.

This is the important step - to slowly raise the temperature of the eggs so that it doesn't scramble. Add the hot mixture 1 tbsp at a time to the eggs and whisk continually. I think I added about 10 tbsps before I moved on to the next step.

3. Pour the egg mixture back into the pot and whisk. Bring to a low boil and let cook 1 minute.

I kept whisking!

4. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and butter. Transfer to a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap allowing the wrap to touch the surface of the custard mixture. Refrigerate 30-45 minutes.

I removed from the heat when it started to thicken and look custardy. I put the custard in the fridge immediately for about 45 mins. It was still slightly warm at the base but it didn't leak out of the crust when I filled it! In the meantime, I made the whipped cream.

The key to making whipped cream is to keep it cold so that the cream will whisk faster. I placed the whisks and bowl in the fridge for 15mins before I started whipping. Then added the cream and sugar and whisked with an electric mixer because it was not arms day. You can whip it to any consistency you like but for this pie, a more solid texture might sit better on the pie.

5. Spread a thin layer of custard into the prepared pie crust. Add sliced bananas and remaining custard. Spread with whipped cream and refrigerate at least 4 hours.

Yes I actually waited the full 4 hours!! 100% worth it.

I have been baking other things in between the Bolo baos and this pie. I made bread rolls - they are getting better! Will eventually do a post on if/when I find the perfect recipe. Also pistachio and dark chocolate cookies and tamagoyaki! I specifically bought this pan and spatula in Japan to make this 3 years ago but never got round to it till now. I was pretty happy with the result! Perhaps time to invest in dashi.

Nic x