Nanabanana Cream Pie
Forgive me when I humbly say to you, this is one of the best banana cream pies I have ever made.
Nanabanana Cream Pie
NANABANANA CREAM PIE
9″ deep dish pie pan/plate
Serves 10
To Make the Pie
Ingredients
- Pre-baked Cookie Crumb Crust (recipe follows)
- Luscious Cream Filling (recipe follows)
- 3-5 ripe but not mushy bananas, sliced 1/2 inch thick
- 1 to 2 tablespoons demerara sugar (optional)
- Chantilly Cream (recipe follows)
Procedure
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Make, pre-bake, and set aside the crust to cool.
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While the crust is baking and cooling, make the Luscious Pastry Cream and let cool.
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Place a layer of banana slices inside the bottom of the cooled pie shell; keep some slices to layer on top.
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Evenly spread the Luscious Pastry Cream over the bananas.
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Arrange the set-aside banana slices over the top of the filling in whatever pattern you like.
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Sprinkle the optional sugar over the top and lightly run a blowtorch over it. (Optional step)
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Serve with a dollop of Chantilly Cream.
Cookie Crumb Crust
Ingredients
- 3 cups cookie crumbs (I used peanut butter cookies.)
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 8 tablespoons salted butter, melted
Procedure
- Preheat oven to 350F.
- Make the cookie crumbs by processing them in a food processor or placing them in a large resealable bag and rolling with your pin until finely crushed.
- Place the cookie crumbs, sugar, and optional extras into a bowl. Add the melted butter and distribute it well with clean hands or a fork.
- Turn the mixture into the pie pan and evenly spread it out over the bottom and up the sides, but do not spread on top of the rim. You can use your fingers, the back of a spoon, or even the rounded side of a coffee cup or a small bowl. Try to make the depth of the crust even on the sides and the bottom.
- Bake for 6 to 8 minutes until the edges have gained a little color. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
Luscious Cream Filling
Ingredients
- 8 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup cornstarch
- 4 cups half and half
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons butter, cut into pats
Procedure
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Place the egg yolks in a medium bowl. Add the vanilla extract and banana extract, if using, and whisk into the yolks for a minute or so until the eggs are smooth. It’s fine to do this with a fork. Set aside.
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In a medium heavy saucepan, place the sugar and cornstarch, and mix together with a whisk.
- With a whisk in hand, turn the heat to medium under the saucepan and slowly and steadily pour the half-and-half into the dry ingredients while whisking constantly. I whisk in a figure-eight pattern. Keep whisking until the mixture thickens and you see it begin to bubble.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour ½ cup of the hot mixture into the eggs in the bowl to temper them. Whisk together in the bowl until it looks blended in. This won’t take long.
- Return the hot egg mixture to the saucepan, place it back on the burner, and turn the heat back on to medium. Bring to a boil and continue to whisk in a figure eight constantly and vigorously for 2 minutes, while the Pastry Cream plop, plop, plops. Remove from the heat. The Pastry Cream will be thick and coat the back of a spoon.
- Turn the hot mixture into a bowl and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk in the butter pats.
- Cover with wax paper to prevent a skin from forming as it cools. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Whisk a bit before using.
- Whip 1/2 cup heavy cream until it forms soft peaks and fold into the cooled mixture until it is evenly distributed.
Chantilly Cream
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Procedure
- Chill a bowl, beaters, and cream.
- Pour whipping cream in a medium size deep bowl. Add sugar and vanilla extract.
- Whip with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, 3 to 5 minutes.
Notes: You can easily halve or even quarter all the components (crust, filling, whipped topping) and make smaller sized pies.
It’s perfectly fine to substitute banana extract for the vanilla in the Luscious Cream. And if you like, you can sprinkle some sugar on top and hit it with the blowtorch for a little color.
Nanabanana Cream Pie
Hi Kate,
This looks delicious – i adore bananas, so will make this on the weekend.
I got a little lost in step 3 of the luscious cream filling. Is the half and half cold or hot, and am I supposed to add all of it? Whenever i have made this kind of cream before, i have mixed sugar and starch to a cream with a little milk, then poured it into the boiling milk. Also! How do I keep the banana slices from going brown if the pie isn’t eaten right away? Thanks so much!
Hi Andreas- Yes the half and half is cold. You do add all of it. If you have a favorite pastry cream that you make in the way that you described, it probably would be fine to use. This is how I make mine. You can brush the banana slices lightly with little lemon juice to help keep them from turning brown. You can easily halve or even quarter all the components (crust, filling, whipped topping) for the pie to make smaller sized pies. Enjoy!
Ooh, I like the peanut butter cookie crust angle! My grandma used to do this same pie with a butterscotch cream filling for my grandpa. It was his favorite. Thank you for sharing…a great summery pie!
You are so welcome Tracy! I hope you like it. Butterscotch Cream is such a great pie. Do you still have your grandma’s recipe?
Hi Kate,
Must confess I am cookbook collector of shameful number so can size up quality quickly. Was hunting bundt book on Amazon and stumbled onto your book, the cover did it. So peeked inside , push come to shove, purchased 3! My son the chef tried to steal first arrival, one for me, and one for my brother who loves baking pie when he actually turns on his oven. Then had to get a cobalt blue pie pan for him for his collection. Can see this snowballing when granddaughter foodie visits said brother into another book for Christmas for her. Strawberry rhubarb is her drug of choice…
Love the recipe today, envy the sanity of your cabin. Your neighbors will never move! I look forward to more missives from Oregon. Have to thank you for publishing this gorgeous book! Retired and this is going to be used often…belly fat be damned! Lol
Nancy- What a great story! You can never have too much pie, right? We’ve earned every bit of the belly fat, too. Kate
thanks Kate—cannot print nanabanana cream pie—how do I do that???Thank you Joy
Well Joy, it looks like the software that I had been using for recipes for years is no longer supported and updated. 🙁 I found that out when I had the recipe all neatly typed in and when I wanted to make a slight change the program ate the Nanabanana recipe. I ended up typing it in directly into the blog entry. You can print the blog entry out and it will be there…or cut and paste just the recipe portion. It may take me some time to find and transfer everything over to a different recipe program. I’m not sure if the old program liked the pie after it ate it because it didn’t tell me. 😉 Kate
Had this pie at a PIE PARTY this passed weekend and it was my FAVORITE out of 22!! There were 9 savory and 13 dessert pies. THEN I saw the recipe;
WHOA NELLIE…a true blue banana CREAM-lucious. Baker who brought this one used Tate’s cookies for crust.
I am so delighted that the pie was so well received, Nancy Jo, and a Tate’s cookie crumb crust sounds amazing!
You never cease to amaze me. Bananas occupy my counter daily and never go bad. LOVE them. Needless to say, I will love this pie too. Thank you for sharing another delicious pie recipe. Your book gets a lot of use in my kitchen.
XOXO
Kim
Thanks so much Kim! We’re due for a good chat one of these days, too. xo
Kindred spirits – I thought the same this week as I looked in the mirror. I’ve become my mother! I quickly goggled belly fat! Perhaps I shall make peace with it as I will never give up my beloved bananas! Love following you, Kate. Share the kindness along with a piece of pie always makes for a better neighbor. xx
Maybe we should start a club and call it the Nanabanana Sisterhood. 😉
Kate I think that is a Great Idea!! Nanabanana is my “Grandmothers” nickname by my son….So It just fits!
I too look at my body and think – and to think, at 24 yrs, I was so upset because I had one spot of cellulite on my thigh. I should be so lucky now. Truly we have earned who and what we are and should wear it well and wear it proudly. (No, don’t worry, I would never subject anyone to me in a bathing suit at this time). Thanks always for your insights and fab PIES Phyllis
Phyllis- You are most welcome. I love that your nickname is the same. Enjoy the pie!
Looks fabulous, and I too love the p-nut butter crust…writing out the recipe did I miss when to add the tablespoon vanilla to the cream filling?…
Will be a great summer pie while we wait for strawberries and our wild maine blueberries!
Amy- Thank you so much for your eagle eye! Yes, the vanilla should go in with the egg yolks and get whisked. I just updated the recipe. Let me know how you like it. My strawberries are just starting to come in. I’m hoping that I will have enough strawberries to add to my homegrown rhubarb at this weekend’s pie day camp. I grow Shuksans, a variety that does well in the Pacific NW. Do you have a regional fav that you grow? And blueberries? I used to live on a blueberry u-pick farm. Someday I’ll get to Maine and be like Sal in the story. 🙂 Again, many thanks for catching my omission. K
Whew, I’m not going blind. thnks.
I love all strawberries fresh picked. And lucky for me I have a small fruit farm with 17 acres wild Maine blueberries(haven’t seen a bear in years.) We also have 175 fruit trees:cherries, plums, peaches, pears and lots of different apples for pies and cider! I “met” you in Rowan Jacobsen’s “Apples of Uncommon Character.” After assisting in a bakery last summer (25-40 pies/week), I discovered your Art of the Pie and blog last December. Thank you for many smiles and more pies to make!
If you get to Maine, please visit.. And if you get to King Arthur in VT for classes I will try to get there.
Cheers!
I love bananas, I love you, your recipes, and your humor Kate! Thank you for continuing to give! Hugs from Laurie in San Juan Capistrano, CA.
Thank you Kate!
I made this today, for my husband to celebrate Father’s Day… one word… DELICIOUS!!
He ate half of the pie in ONE setting!!
Enjoyed by all of us!
Debbie
Oh this is wonderful! I’m so glad it was a hit. I made one, too. So delicious.
Hmmmm, I’m thinking if you did this with vanilla wafers as the cookie crumb crust this would be like an elegant version of “banana pudding”– with either whipped creamer meringue on top.
Oh heck, yum…I mean, yes!
Question: I attempted this pie for the first time today and my “cream” didn’t set up well. I cooked it until it was boiling (I have a nasty little burn on my finger to prove it!). Should I have maybe cooked lower and longer? I’d love any advice you mate have. 🙂
OH Laura, I am so sorry that this didn’t set up for you AND that you have a little burn. I would suggest “lower and longer,” adjusting the heat on your stovetop as needed, AND I do wear gloves when I am going to be stirring over heat for a while, or at the least change hands from left to right, right to left, as needed during the process. I hope you will try this pie again, as it’s pretty yummy.
Hi Kate –
Great to see and learn from you in virtual gluten-free pie camp earlier this month! We are looking forward to trying the Nanabanana cream pie recipe.
Do you have any suggestions of what cookies for the crust besides peanut butter would go well with this pie?
Ginger snaps, vanilla wafer with some macadamia nuts chopped up, chocolate cookies? Everything is fair game!
Hi Kate. What peanut-butter cookies did you use for your crust? I tried to make the crust with some Franz cookies but they were soft cookies and I added the butter as suggested which was too much I learned and I became a soupy mess when I baked it. Maybe they would have worked with just a little butter, I am not sure. I remade it with a Graham cracker crust because I had some on hand. Sprinkled some leftover peanut butter cookie crumbs on the top. Am looking forward to tasting the pie, but am still curious about what cookies you used or what I could do differently with the ones I tried. Thanks.
Hi Shari-
They were gluten free cookies but I can’t recall the brand. Next time I’m out, I’ll see if I can find them. I don’t use soft cookies for press in crusts ever for exactly the reason you experienced.