Caramelized Banana Custard Pie

For an upscale looking and tasting dessert that's as easy as you want it to be, try this recipe for a caramelized banana custard pie.

Crusty ol' Crust Recipe

I tried this recipe for caramelized banana custard pie with both a pie pan and a tart pan. I liked the way the tart looked, I always do, but the pie was much more satisfying as a dessert. I also realized that pre-made pie shells are readily available at the supermarket but pre-made tart shells are rarely, if ever, available. If you want to make your own pie dough, and I highly recommend it, you can use this recipe:

• 2 pounds 5.5 ounces pastry flour
• 1 1/4 ounces sugar
• 3/4 ounce salt
• 10 ounces butter, cold and cut into cubes
• 10 ounces shortening, cold and broken into small pieces
• 2 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
• 10 ounces ice cold water

Instructions

1. Sift pastry flour and sugar together.
2. Add in salt.
3. Using your pastry scraper, cut the butter and the shortening into the flour until they are uniform in size, about 1/2 inch in size. Cutting into the flour means that you drop some of the cold butter and some of the cold shortening, about a small handful at a time of each, and use the plastic scraper to cut the pieces until they are coated with flour and then add more butter and shortening. In this way you can mix and mingle the two different fats as they get coated with the flour.
4. Drizzle in the apple cider vinegar.
5. Add the ice water into the dough slowly until the dough becomes soft and dry.
6. Separate the dough into four equal parts.
7. Wrap them each in plastic wrap.
8. This recipe is for four 9-inch pie shells. You can freeze whatever pie dough you do not use.
9. Rollout to about 1/4 inch thick for use in your pie dish.
10. Whether you are making your own pie crust or using a pre-made crust, be sure to blind bake the shell first.

Either Way You Go, Start at Vanilla

Start with a vanilla custard and you can make it a banana custard or a chocolate custard whichever you prefer.

The Custard Recipe

• 1 pint milk
• 2 ounces sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• 1 1/4 ounce cornstarch
• 2 ounces sugar
• 1 ounce butter
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

1. In a saucepan, mix 2 ounces of the sugar and milk and bring the milk to a boil. This is called scalding the milk.
2. In a stainless steel bowl, if you have one, or a heatproof bowl, whisk the egg and yolk.
3. Sift the starch and remaining sugar into the eggs and whisk until smooth.
4. Temper the egg mixture by slowly adding a small amount of the hot milk in a think stream into the eggs while whisking.
5. Then slowly add the eggs to the milk.
6. Bring the mixture to a boil while whisking.
7. When the cream comes to a boil and becomes thick, remove from the heat.
8. Stir in the butter and the vanilla extract.
9. Mix until the butter is completely incorporated.
10. Now you have vanilla pie filling. To make it chocolate, add 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate chopped into small chips and 1 ounce of semi-sweet or milk chocolate chopped into small chips into the cream while it is still warm.

Caramelized Banana Custard Pie

The final Ingredients

• 4 bananas sliced into lengthwise strips
• Sugar
• Lemon juice (optional) to keep the bananas from browning

The Instructions

1. For a straight caramelized banana custard pie, take the blind baked pie shell and fill it halfway with the vanilla custard.
2. Layer the sliced bananas over the custard so it is completely covered.
3. If you like, sprinkle the bananas with lemon juice to prevent them from browning.
4. Fill the pie shell with more vanilla custard and then another layer of bananas.
5. Sprinkle the bananas with sugar.
6. Then either use your Brulee torch or your propane torch and brulee the top of the bananas.
7. If you don't happen to have a brulee torch handy, you can crank your broiler to high and quickly caramelize the bananas in the broiler.
8. Watch this very carefully. It will go from golden brown and tasty to burnt to a cinder in seconds.