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!

Low-Fat Banana Bread

I love oats. I put it in my morning coffee, make it for breakfast or lunch with bananas, put it in my yogurt; most of all, I love adding it to anything I'm baking, especially bread.

This recipe is pretty good. It was quite dry which I liked. Most banana breads taste too much like banana cakes to me.

This recipe makes 1 loaf.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup All purpose flour
1/2 cup Brown sugar ; packed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 teaspoons Canola Oil ; or walnut oil
1 large egg ; beaten
2 medium Egg white ; beaten
3 large bananas ; ripe
1 cup Oats ; uncooked

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease and flour a loaf pan and set aside. In a large bowl, stir together dry ingredients including the oats and cinnamon.

In a smaller bowl, mash bananas with a potato masher or fork. Add oil and whole egg and mix thoroughly.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix well. Batter will be fairly thick.

In a medium sized bowl, with an electric hand mixer, beat the egg whites until medium stiff peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the batter in three additions.

Pour batter into pan and bake until top of loaf is firm to touch, 45 to 50 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes. Flip out and cool on a wire rack for another 10 minutes. Slice loaf into 10 equally sized slices.

Banana Pancakes

My dad makes fantastic banana pancakes. He mashes up the bananas and add them to the pancake batter. Today I decided to try another type of banana pancake, with pancakes and caramelised bananas on the side.

This recipe yields 3 servings

Ingredients
2 large eggs
2oz plain flour
7.5ml spoon (heaped) baking powder
70ml milk
Pinch of salt
1 tbs butter
7.5ml spoons caster sugar
2 bananas, peeled and cut lengthwise
Crème fraîche or plain yogurt

Method
Separate the eggs, putting the whites in one bowl and the yolks in another.
Combine the plain flour, baking powder and milk with egg yolks, and mix until it forms a smooth, thick batter. Whisk the whites with salt until they form stiff peaks. Fold these whites into the batter - it is now ready to use. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat. Pour some of your batter into the pan, and fry for a couple of minutes until it starts to look golden and firm. Loosen with a spatula, and either turn or flip the pancake over. Continue frying until golden, then stack on a plate. Repeat until all the mixture has been used. Melt sugar in pan without stirring. Once all sugar crystals melted and you're happy with colour, take it off stove. Add butter and bananas and cook gently until they are golden, turning after a few minutes. Add a little amount of water so caramel is not too thick. Serve them on the pancakes topped with a good spoonful of crème fraîche or yogurt.