This Old Fashioned Banana Cream pie is made with a from scratch vanilla pudding filling and fresh bananas! There is nothing like a real banana cream pie! I prefer mine to have a graham cracker crust for flavor, but you can also blind bake a pastry crust bottom and use that for the traditional version.
2/3teaspoonbanana flavoringoptional or 1 tsp vanilla
2-3smallnicely ripened bananas
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Combine the crumbs and butter, press into a 9.5-inch pie plate on the bottom and up the sides to form crust. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely.
Combine your sugar, cornstarch and salt into a large, heavy saucepan and set aside for the moment.
For this recipe you will need to scald the milk and my favorite way to do that is in the microwave. I used my 4 cup Pyrex glass measuring cup, put in my three cups and microwave it until the milk steams. Do not let it boil!
Place your heavy saucepan that contains the sugar mixture on the stove over medium heat then slowly whisk in the scalded milk.
Cook this mixture until it starts to thicken up, about 5-8 minutes depending on the heat of your element. Once it reaches the thickening stage, turn down the heat a bit and cook for a couple more minutes longer, stirring occasionally to make sure it doesn’t burn or stick to the pot.
Beat your egg yolks together and then once your hot mixture is ready, we need to temper the eggs. This involves taking a 1/4 cup of the hot mixture and combining it into the egg yolks completely. Once you have done that, you are safe to whisk the egg yolks into the whole pot of the hot mixture without fear of it clumping up.
Cook the egg yolks for a minute, then add in the butter. Whisk until it’s melted into the mixture. Stir in your banana flavoring or vanilla and then remove from the heat.
When the mixture is cooled down to being just warm, slice 2-3 bananas and place into the bottom of the pie shell you made and refrigerated earlier on. When you have all the bananas you want, pour the filling evenly over the bananas and smooth out the top.
Refrigerate a few hours so it sets then top with as much whipped cream as you want. Slice and serve.
Notes
the banana extract really makes the pie full of banana flavor!