Banana Cream Pie

 - American/Danish Recipe

Directions:

1. The day before, make the pie crust and the beginning of the custard. 

2. To make the pie crust, simply take all the ingredients and mix them together by hand until it makes a soft dough. Cover in plastic and set in the fridge. 

3. To start the custard, pour milk, banana pieces, and vanilla in a sauce pan. Bring the mixture to almost a boil (just until it starts to steam). 

   - If you are using a vanilla bean: cut the bean in half (long ways), scrape out the insides with a knife, then add the bean shell and the paste from inside into the milk mixture. 

4. Cover up the mixture set it in the fridge over night so the bananas and vanilla flavor can infuse into the milk. 

5. The next day, preheat the oven to 400 *F (200 *C). 

6. Roll out the pie crust on a floured surface so it is just bigger than oiled pie pan. 

7. Press the pie crust into the pie pan, cut the edges off, prick the sides and bottom a little bit, and bake for 7-9 minutes or until light golden brown. 

8. With a seive or a cheese cloth, separate the bananas (and vanilla bean shell, if using) from the milk, trying to get as much milk from the bananas as possible. 

9. Discard the bananas and the vanilla bean shell. 

10. Heat up the milk over medium heat until it gets steamy. 

11. While the milk is heating, in a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and salt. 

12. When the milk is ready, remove it from the heat.

13. Making sure to whisk constantly, slowly pour a couple of Tbsp of hot milk mixture over the egg yolk mixture.

14. Then, whisking constantly, pour the yolk mixutre slowly into the milk mixture. 

15. Put the pan back on the heat and stir constantly, making sure the scrape the sides while you stir. As the mixture heats up it will get thicker and thicker until it creates a custard. 

16. Remove from the heat and add the butter. Mix it around until you have a nice uniform mixture.

17. Once it is finished, your pie crust should have been cooling off from baking. Cut up one banana and distribute it evenly on the bottom of the pie pan.

18. Pour half of the custard in the bottom of the banana pieces and spread it out evenly.

19. Cut up another banana and distribute it evenly on top of the custard in the pie crust form. 

20. Pour the remaining custard over the banana slices and spread it out evenly. 

21. Cover the pie with plastic wrap and allow it chill in the fridge for a couple hours.

22. Whip some cream with a little bit of powdered sugar (the amount depends on you - I whip about 300g).

23. Using the whipped cream and 1/2 of a banana sliced, decorate the pie. 

Notes:

- The bananas used to decorate the pie will brown pretty fast due to oxidation, one way to slow this down is to make a simply syrup and toss them in it before placing them on the pie for decoration. The simple syrup can be made by heating up 60 g water and 60 g sugar over medium low heat until there are no more sugar crystals. That is it. 

- You do not have to wait an entire day to let the banana pieces and vanilla infuse into the milk, neither do you have to wait an entire day before using the pie crust mixture from the fridge. This is just for best results and flavor. 

- You also do not need to infuse bananas in the milk at all if you do not want to. You could just make a vanilla custard by allowing the vanilla beans to infuse in the milk or by just making the custard at once with vanilla powder or extract instead. Once again, the infusing of bananas and vanilla is just for the best results, but it can certainly be done differently. 

- This custard is also good to just eat (with or without bananas infused) just as you would pudding. 

- Without decoration and covered with plastic, this pie can be stored in the fridge for 2 days. 

- When decorated, the pie can last in the fridge (covered) for 1-2 day; the cream and banana slices simply do not last in the fridge before becoming questionable. 

- The pie crust dough can last in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. 

- The custard can last in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days or up to a month in the freezer, but I would not recommend freezing it unless you would like a bit of a challenge. To learn how to freeze custard correctly, click here.