Banana Cream Pie

I am in love with this pie! It is just so good. When I took the pie out of the oven, I thought I would distribute some to my relatives. After we each ate a slice, it was unanimously decided to keep the pie in the refrigerator for our further consumption.

However, it proved far too good to keep the whole pie to ourselves. So when we received visitors, we had to give them a taste of it.

I've been waxing lyrical about the pie to just about everyone who would listen. So here's the recipe, as adapted from House of Annie. I used my own favourite recipe for the crust. I like my pie crust almost sugar free. It goes well with the sweet filling. I won't be posting that yet as I am still tweaking it.

Ingredients:
One pie crust dough
~~ -- Pudding -- ~~
1 cups milk
28 grams butter
3/8 cups sugar ; (or less, you can taste the pudding later and if it's not sweet enough, you can add more sugar)
1 1/2 tablespoon All purpose flour ; heaping
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 egg yolks
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 F (210 C).

2. Roll out your dough into a round, about 1/8 inch thick, dusting with flour to keep it from sticking. Place dough round on your pie pan and press into pan and crimp edges to the side of the pan. Dock with a fork all around the crust.

3. Cover with foil or parchment paper and cover with pie weights. Bake for 10-12 minutes.

4. Remove foil/parchment paper and bake for another 10-12 minutes till golden brown.

5. Cool pie crust.

Pudding method:
1. Heat on stove milk and butter over med-low heat in large sauce pan.

2. Mix in another bowl the sugar, flour, salt and yolks. Add to this mixture enough milk from the sauce pan to make a paste.

3. Add paste to milk/butter mixture on stove. Make sure the milk mixture is not too hot when adding the paste or the eggs will curdle. Whisk mixture constantly over med-low heat until the mixture thickens and comes to a boil. Do not boil for too long or it will thicken too much.

4. Remove from heat immediately and stir in vanilla essence. Let it cool slightly. If you want a smoother pudding, strain it so that the bits of cooked egg will be strained out.

To assemble banana cream pie:
1. Slice 5-8 bananas (depending on size of bananas) in half length-wise. You can choose to slice them into rounds but I find that the pie slices hold better when you slice in half and lay them in circles around the crust. Cut as needed to fit all the bananas into the bottom of the pie crust.

2. Pour warm pudding over bananas until the bananas are covered and the pudding is almost at the top of the crust.

3. Cool in refrigerator until set, about 2-3 hours.

4. Just before serving, whip some heavy cream with sugar and vanilla. Spread whipped cream over pie.

5. Slice into wedges and enjoy!