Banana Cream Pie

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Banana Cream Pie, was selected by Amy of Sing for your Supper . Amy’s blog just turned one and is really great! Check out her blog for the entire recipe and all her other great recipes. I can’t say that I was thrilled at the choice of banana cream pie, since I really dislike bananas, but I thought I would give it a try. As long as I didn’t have bananas sitting around the house too long, I figured I would be ok. (I hate the smell of bananas mainly, so as long as I don’t have to smell them. I like banana bread, so it’s not so much the flavor I don’t like.)

I maybe should have listened to my intuition about making this pie! I didn’t want to make it and I ended up having nothing but trouble putting this pie together. I don’t normally have too much trouble with pastry, but ended up making three crusts before one turned out ok. I finally resorted to using a frozen pie shell, which turned out ok. I don’t usually use premade things if possible, but nothing else seemed to want to turn out.

This recipe has you make spiced custard, which is quite similar to some of the other custards that I have made for other Tuesdays with Dorie recipe. You add cinnamon and nutmeg, but that was really the only difference. The custard came together without a problem, although it did get really thick almost instantly. I refrigerated the custard until the next day, which would be ok according to the recipe.

When I went to assemble the pie, the custard was so thick that you couldn’t really spread it all that easily. It was almost rubbery. Not so appetizing! I added a little milk and that helped a little, but it wasn’t spreadable. I managed to coax it into layers and alternated with the bananas. The crust was pretty delicate, so I had to be careful in all of the assembly process. I only ended up using 2 bananas, so maybe I cut them too thin. I whipped the cream to top the pie and it looked ok.

I cut the pie and I had the greatest hope. I hoped that I would like it, that I would be able to get past disliking bananas, but I didn’t like the pie at all. I don’t know if I did something wrong, but the pie really had very little flavor. I could taste the bananas a little bit, but the spiced custard was bland and the whipped cream topping needed a little additional sweetness. I would have liked the custard to be softer and smoother, and I guess I wanted more of a vanilla flavor. My husband thought it was ok, but also agreed that it needed more flavor. I was glad that I tried it, and hopefully there will be other Tuesdays with Dorie selections using banana. I’ll find something yet that I like!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 342.