My family loves pie, and my husband’s favorite one is probably banana cream pie. For all the pies I’ve made over the years, I’d never made one until this past weekend. I’m not a huge banana fan, but I love cream pies, so I decided I’d try to make one.

The concept is really simple. You blind-bake the pie crust, slice up some bananas, and make a custard filling. Nothing hard about it at all. Most of the banana cream pie recipes you find on the Interest and in cookbooks are basically the same and use the same ingredients. For the custard filling, you can use whole milk or 2% milk, but I’d avoid using skim or fat-free milk. You’re making cream pie, for heaven sake! For mine, I used 2 cups of 2% milk and 1 cup of cream.

Banana Cream Pie

1 unbaked pie crust (either homemade or store bought)

3 cups whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 tablespoons butter (not margarine)

1 teaspoon good vanilla

4 to 6 bananas (depending on size), sliced

Whipped cream

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. To blind-bake your unbaked pie shell, add a layer of parchment paper to the pie shell, and add dry beans or a pie weight to weigh down the parchment paper. Bake the pie shell for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, and remove the parchment paper and beans. Bake for an additional 5 minutes, or until the pie crust is nicely brown. Remove from the oven, and let it cool completely.

In a large skillet over low-to-medium heat, scald the milk. In a bowl, combine the sugar, flour and salt. Gradually stir mixture into the scaled milk. Over medium heat, cook the milk mixture, stirring constantly, until it thickens.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Temper the eggs by adding about 1/2 cup of the hot milk mixture, whisking constantly. When combined, add the egg mixture to the pan of the hot milk mixture, and cook for about 1 to 2 minutes more, or until the mixture is thick and custard-like.

Remove the pan from the heat, and whisk in the butter and the vanilla. Let the mixture cool slightly.

Slice the bananas into the bottom of the baked and cooled pie crust. Top the bananas with the slightly cooled custard, making sure to smooth the filling over all the bananas. Refrigerate for several hours to allow the filling to set.

To serve, slice the pie, and top each slice with whipped cream.

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