Chocolate Banana Cream Pie

MMM, is your mouth watering? It should be. I had to recover from a food coma from Mike's dad's birthday dinner the other night. I brought this incredibly delicious pie for dessert but first, we had Thanksgiving come early. Mike's mom made us an incredible feast for dinner! Everything from honey ham to stuffing and mashed potatoes. It was so good and I am already excited for more next week. (fat kid at heart).

The weekends always go by so quickly.  I savor the weekends with my family and friends. It is as carefree as it gets these days. Sunday, I spent most of my day constructing a chocolate banana cream pie. It takes more effort than I thought.

I started with making pie crust. Let it rest, then baked it.

Made the pastry cream. Let it cool.

Made the chocolate moose. Let it cool.

Made the whipped cream.

Made the chocolate curls. (they looked more like rough shavings oops).

Sliced the bananas and put it all together.  See, step by step.

Last but not least, we devoured it.

All of it.

yum.




RECIPE:


Crust. I used a different recipe but don't have it with me at the moment (sorry!) but dearest Martha has a great and similar recipe. Get it here. 


Cream.

3 cups whole milk

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

Scald (medium heat until it barely begins to bubble) the milk in a medium saucepan. 

In another saucepan, combine sugar, flour and salt. Slowly, add the scaled milk into the flour mixture. Turn the burner to medium heat and stir constantly until it gets thick (about 5 minutes). Once it is thickened, cover the mixture with a lid and cook for 2 more minutes, stirring occasionally. In a small bowl, have the 3 egg yolks, slightly beaten, ready; stir a small amount of the hot mixture into beaten yolks; when thoroughly combined, stir yolks into hot mixture. Take off the heat and mis in the butter and vanilla until smooth. Let cool completely.

Chocolate Moose.

4 egg yolks

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 package (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (1 cup)

1 1/2 cups whipping (heavy) cream

Beat egg yolks in your stand mixer until fluffy and has a "lemon" yellow color. This take about 3 minutes. Gradually beat the sugar into the egg yolks. Heat 1 cup whipping cream in a saucepan over medium heat until hot. Gradually stir at least half of the hot whipping cream into egg yolk mixture; stir back into hot cream in saucepan. Cook over low heat about 5 minutes, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens (do not boil). Stir in chocolate chips until melted. Cover and refrigerate about 2 hours, stirring occasionally, just until chilled. Once you are ready to build you pie, whipped up the remaining whipping cream and gently fold the whipped cream into your chocolate mixture. 

Build it. 

Bake your crust and let it cool completely.


Slice 3 bananas up and place around the bottom of the pie crust.


Spread your pastry cream over the bananas.


Spread your chocolate moose over your pastry cream.


Top with whipped cream and chocolate shavings (if you like!)

Have a Berry Happy Day!

Nerd alert! I know I am a cornball but hey...cut me some slack eh? :)

My family from the east coast is here visiting for two weeks. We get to see them usually twice a year and it is always nice spending time together.  This past weekend we had a BBQ at my grandparent's house which was perfect because I had spent the day baking a pie for no reason what-so-ever.

BBQ was a perfect occasion for Mr. berry pie to make his appearance.

Homemade crust makes ALL the difference! This is a simple recipe and it is light, flavorful and crispy! Give it a whirl and let me know what creation you come up with this summer!

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted cold butter, cut into 1/2'' pieces

3-4 tablespoons cold water

1 1/4 cup AP flour

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor. Process for a few seconds to combine. Add the frozen butter and pulse 6-10 times until the butter and flour looks like crumbs.

Transfer the mixture into a stand mixer (or large bowl - you can do this by hand or with a hand mixer). With the speed on low, gradually add 3 tablespoons of cold water until the dough comes together. 

Roll dough out onto a floured surface and kneed 5-6 times. 

Form dough into a 6'' disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Let it cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.

After thirty minutes, roll out dough and form into your pie dish. Fill and design your pie and let it cool in the fridge for 30 minutes before you bake at 400' for 50 minutes!

*notes: to make a design on top of the pie or cover it completely you just need to make this recipe twice! One for the bottom crust and one for the top.

Remember, you can fill a pie with pretttty much anything you want. So, get creative!

Happy Baking! :)

Note the picture of little Tay in the background. Haha, such proud grandparents!

For the Dads

This is my dad. He likes Boston Cream Pie.

This is his pie.

This is my grandpa. He likes sugar free cookies.

These are his sugar free cookies.

Secret ingredient?

Try baking with Splenda! 

It lowers the calorie count and things still taste really good. 

Let me know how it goes!!

That was my Christmas treats for two of the dads in my life. Love you both!