Chocolate Banana Cream Pie | Love and Olive Oil

When you may’t determine between chocolate or banana cream pie, why not make each? With a flaky chocolate crust stuffed with sliced bananas, distinct layers of easy vanilla and darkish chocolate pastry cream, and a fluffy cloud of whipped cream on prime for a multi-layered delight that’s certain to please.

All these layers would possibly look sophisticated, however you’ll be stunned how shortly it comes collectively! The custard is made on the stovetop, thickened with a mixture of flour and cornstarch for a thick and steady pudding with a lusciously easy texture. The two totally different flavors are comprised of the identical custard base, with a little bit of bittersweet chocolate melted into half earlier than layering within the pie crust.

We’re not superb at making choices. It took us 3 months to select a settee for our lounge. Nearly per week to choose a reputation for our kitten. I ordered and returned 8 totally different pairs of winter footwear earlier than I lastly preferred one sufficient to maintain.

Needless to say, choices are usually not our sturdy go well with.

That contains pie-related choices.

I imply, who of their proper thoughts can select between chocolate or banana cream pie? Chocolate, is, nicely, chocolate. You can’t go improper with chocolate. But banana… one thing about it simply makes me completely happy inside. I can’t keep in mind the final time I truly ate a banana cream pie, but the recollections of the flavour are contemporary in my thoughts. Hard as I attempted, I couldn’t get the considered its creamy goodness out of my head. I knew I undoubtedly wished to make a cream pie, that was straightforward. But deciding between chocolate cream pie or banana cream pie? Impossible.

So, I did what any obsessive, indecisive, sweet-toothed baker would do when confronted with such a dilemma: I made each.

The outcomes converse for themselves I feel. It’s so good, in reality, that I’m planning to make a second pie this weekend. And perhaps one other pie each weekend after that. This pie is so good that I can not image my life with out it.

Regular banana cream pie options layers of sliced banana and wealthy vanilla custard (sure, vanilla—it’s at all times baffled me that there’s no banana within the precise cream half, however the sliced bananas add greater than sufficient banana taste on their very own).

In distinction, this pie splits the custard, melting bittersweet chocolate into half of it so that you get two distinct layers with out having to do twice the work. Nestled in a flaky chocolate pastry crust and topped with a mountain of freshly whipped cream (and don’t overlook the chocolate curls!) it’s the right quantity of chocolate to fulfill even probably the most religious chocoholic.

Crust points.

The chocolate pastry crust is principally an everyday butter-based pie crust with added cocoa powder. There are a number of different variations (a little bit of sugar to sweeten the cocoa, a bit of shortening to enhance the tenderness and workability) however the normal concept is identical, regardless of the ultimate consequence being so visually totally different.

For extra detailed directions and step-by-step images of the crust, please take a look at the Flaky Chocolate Pie Crust recipe. The components and abbreviated directions are included right here, however since pie crust will be finicky (crust me, I KNOW), I opted to create a separate publish only for the crust to assist guarantee your baking success.

Whether you utilize the chocolate pastry crust as written, or go for a distinct crust fully (use your favourite pie crust recipe or perhaps a cookie crust when you desire!) you’ll wish to be certain the crust is absolutely baked and cooled earlier than you begin making the custard.

This pie begins with a totally baked chocolate pastry crust, with sliced bananas within the backside, topped with distinct layers of wealthy vanilla and darkish chocolate custard. Finally, the icing on the cake (er, the whipped cream on the pie?) is a swoop of fluffy whipped cream and a scattering of darkish chocolate curls.

It’s an ideal recipe to make forward of time, because the custard must set anyway (a number of hours ideally, however you may actually let it sit in a single day). You also can make the pie crust even farther forward of time and freeze it earlier than or after baking.

I don’t advocate freezing the crammed pie, nonetheless, as pastry cream fillings resembling these can typically get a bit of bizarre (weepy or barely curdled) after freezing and thawing.

Here’s methods to make it:

Ingredient Notes & Substitutions

Pie crust: While I used a chocolate pastry crust right here (principally a basic pie crust however with some cocoa added), you possibly can use an everyday pie crust, or perhaps a chocolate cookie crust. Since the filling is unbaked, you’ll simply want to completely bake the pie crust first.

Banana: If you wished to depart out the layer of banana, you possibly can simply have a black and white pie with layers of vanilla pastry cream and chocolate cream. There’s no precise banana taste within the vanilla cream, all of the banana taste comes from the layer of banana slices within the backside!

Chocolate: I used a 56% semi candy chocolate, however you should use any good high quality chocolate from 50-70%. I do advocate utilizing an excellent high quality chocolate versus chocolate chips, which include stabilizers that make them tougher to soften easily.

If you wished a basic banana cream pie, you may also skip the chocolate and preserve the custard fully vanilla (guessing you’ll in all probability wish to use a non-chocolate pie crust too).

Milk: Whole milk please. I additionally don’t advocate utilizing non-dairy milks for this recipe as they don’t set in addition to actual milk.

Flour/cornstarch: I used a mixture of thickeners to provide the pie its thick, sliceable texture. While my authentic recipe simply used flour, I discovered the combination of flour and cornstarch to be a greater stability of taste and texture. when you wished to make use of simply flour, use about 1/3 cup. For all cornstarch, use 1/4 cup. I’ve not examined this recipe with alternate thickeners.

Guar gum: one among my favourite methods to stabilize whipped cream is so as to add a tiny little bit of guar gum (whisk it in with the sugar earlier than you add it to the cream). It’s wonderful how nicely the whipped cream holds up with this tiny addition! That mentioned, be at liberty to depart it out, I simply advocate ready so as to add the cream layer till the day you propose to serve it.

Chocolate curls: You can buy theseor make your personal by working a vegetable peeler on the sting of a heat room temperature chocolate bar (I discover this technique best) or spreading tempered chocolate onto a cool floor like marble, after which scraping curls off with a bench scraper (that is difficult because the chocolate must be precisely the appropriate temperature, however with a bit of apply it really works fantastically!)

Note: This recipe was initially printed in 2011 and has been up to date and rephotographed. The recipe is usually the identical, with flour and cornstarch within the filling (as an alternative of simply flour), and a barely totally different order on the layers.