Yield: one 9-inch pie
Recipe: 173/200
“Back to Baking”, pp. 96
I have been staring at this recipe in the face for years but always avoided it. Banana, chocolate AND peanut butter? Sounded like too much. I like bananas but don’t necessarily crave them. I love chocolate and peanut butter, and of course both of these individually go well with bananas, but all of them together? I was quite sure that would be weird. Nonetheless, I had an abundance of bananas due to an ordering snafu so thought that now would be the perfect time to finally do this recipe.
I enjoyed making it. Nicely detailed steps, some chilling steps and finally making the peanut butter whip which is not something I ever thought I’d make. The chocolate shavings did not turn out as expected and didn’t want to curl for some reason (is there such a thing as chocolate being too dry? Because that was my impression), so it was more like chocolate dust.
I served the pie to my husband and I, fully expecting to not like it and I even warned my husband about it. To my great surprise, I was so very wrong. This pie is absolutely delicious! Scrumptious. Everything goes perfectly well together, everything is balanced, no single flavor is overpowering. I was pleasantly surprised at every bite I took. What a pleasant way to be wrong! It was so good and I still had a bunch of bananas left so I actually made this pie again within a week for my husband’s work, and all his colleagues loved the pie as well. It is definitely in my top 3 recipes so far from the cookbook! Do not wait to do it, do not be afraid and you will be rewarded with the most perfect, nostalgic bite of childhood flavors.
Ingredients:
- ½ recipe Double Crust Pie Dough, chilled
- 1 egg white
Ingredients for filling:
- 2 to 3 bananas, sliced
- 1 ¼ cups milk
- ½ cup whipping cream
- 4 egg yolks
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 6 oz (175 g) semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Ingredients for peanut butter whip:
- 1 ½ cups whipping cream
- 1 ½ tablespoons skim milk powder
- ⅓ cup icing sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup peanut butter, any kind you prefer
- Chocolate shavings (dark) for garnish
Directions:
- Pull the pie dough out of the fridge 30 minutes before rolling. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to ⅛ inch (3 mm) thick. Line a 9-inch pie shell with dough, trim, and cinch the edges. Chill for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line the pie she;; with aluminum foil and weight with pie weights, rice or dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove the foil and weights and bake for 10-12 more minutes, until the centre of the pie shell is dry and the edges are lightly browned. While still hot, brush the surface of the pie shell with the egg white, it will create a barrier to prevent the crust from going soggy. Allow the pie shell to cool.
- Arrange the sliced bananas over the bottom of the cooled pie shell, overlapping if needed.
- Heat the milk and cream in a saucepot over medium heat to just below a simmer. In a bowl, whisk the egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla and salt and, while whisking, slowly add the hot milk mixture. Return the mixture to the pot and cook over medium heat while whisking constantly, switch to a spatula now and again to ensure you are stirring into the corners, until the mixture just begins to reach a simmer (a few bubbles will break the surface).
- Place the chopped chocolate in a bowl, and pour the custard through a strainer placed over the bowl and let sit for one minute. Whisk until the chocolate has melted, then pour the custard over the bananas in the pie shell. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the custard so that it touched the entire surface and chill until set, about 4 hours.
- To prepare the peanut butter whip, whip the cream with the skim milk powder until the cream holds a soft peak when the beaters are lifted. Whip in the icing sugar and vanilla. In a bowl, stir the peanut butter to soften it and add about half of the whipped cream, stirring until blended. Fold this and peanut butter mixture into the other half of the whipped cream and spread overtop the chilled pie. Garnish the pie with chocolate shavings and chill until ready to serve. The pie will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 days.
Happy baking!
Valerie
Valerie 