Banana cream pie with sesame toffee crunch

17 Mar

Written By Antony

“This is the kind of pie that gets me. The kind I fall head over peel in love with. The buckwheat crust is the ‘edible bowl’ I love and the earthy, toffee sesame crunch is the pie accessory you never knew you needed. You’ll need one overripe banana to make the custard and then some perfectly ripe ones to be cuddled by custard. Go bananas – literally.” - Natalie Paull

SERVES 6–10

Takes - With a blind-baked crust, 1½–2 hours to make the custard, cool and fill the crust. Chill for minimum 4 hours or overnight.

Keeps - Chilled for 1 day, then the bananas will start to brown slightly more each day.

½ × batch Super flaky buckwheat crust, rolled into a 25 cm (10 in) pie dish OR a 23 cm (9 in) round × 5 cm (2 in) deep tart tin and blind baked to deep golden brown

Filling

1 really ripe, half-black banana (peeled weight 100g + 3–4 just perfectly ripe speckled bananas (peeled weight 500g)

80g caster (superfine) sugar

25g cornflour (cornstarch)

5g (½ tsp) vanilla paste

3g (1 scant tsp) powdered gelatine

2g (¼ tsp) fine sea salt

60g egg yolk (from approx. 3 eggs)

220g/ml full-cream (whole) milk

220g/ml thin cream (35% milk fat)

60g unsalted butter, soft and chopped

Vanilla cream

350g/ml thick cream (45% milk fat)

5g (½ tsp) vanilla paste

To finish

½ × batch Lazy toffee crunch – Sesame Adaptrix

In a medium bowl, weigh the super-ripe banana, sugar, cornflour, vanilla, gelatine and salt. Mash to a lumpy paste with a whisk. Add the egg yolks and whisk well.

Lastly, add the milk and cream. Scrape the mix into a 20 cm (8 in) saucepan.

The teeny lumps won’t matter. If you want super smooth, whiz the bananas first.

Place the saucepan over a medium–high heat and hand whisk at a slow pace to allow the heat to suffuse through the mix. Work the small balloon whisk into the corners of the saucepan (where the custard thickens first). After around 3 minutes of whisking, the custard will start to look like a creamy liquid.

Speed up the whisking now – the custard will thicken fast. It will look lumpy, but just whisk quickly and it will all come together into an evenly thick paste in another 1 minute.

As soon as it thickens, slow down the whisking and wait for a few burp-like bubbles to pop over the surface. The custard will look like stiff mashed potato.

Remove the saucepan from the heat, scrape the custard into a wide bowl and stir in the butter with a stiff plastic spatula until dissolved. Then stir slowly every 5 minutes as it cools to around 25°C, so a skin doesn’t form. This will take around 1 hour in a cool kitchen (longer in a warm kitchen).

Grab your blind-baked crust.* Cut the perfectly ripe bananas down the middle lengthways then into 2 cm (3/4 in) wide semicircles. Gently fold the banana pieces into the cooled custard to coat thoroughly.

The custard will seal around the banana, staving off oxidisation. If the custard is too hot this can accelerate browning.

Scrape the mix into the crust, smooth the top and press a piece of plastic wrap to the surface and chill for a minimum of 4 hours or overnight.

To finish, whip the cream with the vanilla. Pile onto the centre of the cooled pie. With an offset spatula, gently push the cream to the crust edge. Chop the sesame wafer into a chunky dust and scatter over the top. To serve, saw gently through the cream, clean the knife, then cut through fully along the slice line again to chomp through the filling all the way to the base. If you don’t eat the entire pie once cut, press a piece of plastic wrap against the cut side to delay the banana browning.

* If the crust burns or breaks pre-fill, make the Crisp rye streusel (page 274) or pop to the supermarket and grab a packet of wheaten cookies. Whiz 240g with 60g melted butter to a wet sandy crumb and press into the pie dish (see Nicole Rucker’s life-affirming lime pie, page 131, for crustpressing method). Set the crust by baking for 10 minutes at 130°C (265°F), then cool and fill as described.

Adaptrix

P-B

Peanuts go hand in hand with banana. Whisk 60g smooth peanut butter with the butter into the custard at the end. Make a Lazy toffee crunch (page 273) with peanuts (not sesame) or the Leatherwood honeycomb (page 270) and scatter this on top.