Banana Cream Pie With Candied Walnuts

Since marrying the Robber I have been on a quest to find a banana cream pie I could really get behind. You see, the Robber loves loves loves banana cream pie and to the vast vast vast majority of cream pies I say: meh. There is nothing exciting a banana cream pie has to offer. No thrill of taste. No comforting sigh. Mostly just bland custard and too-soft bananas.

But the quest. The sacrifices we make for marriage. And finally, this pie, and this triumph. Yes! This pie is triumph! For the first time in my life, I have met a banana cream pie I could eat over again, get excited about making again, savor in my sleep. I have found you banana cream pie, and now I will never stray again. The search is over. I found this pie on pieloveyou.blogspot.com, but it comes by way of Bubby's Homemade Pies, a cookbook based out of a restaurant in Lower Manhattan. I made my own crust for it, but I'm sure it would be just as delicious with the crust suggested which is below.

Note: I made a full batch of the candied walnuts, which I used for both the pie and a salad. For the pie only I think you could use a half batch and have plenty.

You can find the recipe online here:

http://pieloveyou.blogspot.com/2010/02/banana-cream-pie-with-candied-walnuts-4.html

For the candied nuts:

1/4 C. honey (any type)

1 3/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

2 C. raw, unsalted walnuts or pecans

1) Preheat the oven to 300 degrees degrees Fahrenheit. In a large bowl, mix together honey, vanilla, cinnamon, salt, nuts and mix well.

2) Spread the coated nuts on a large, well-greased, baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes. Stir and scrape them up every 5 minutes with a spatula. Return to pan until they smell good and are a deep glossy brown. Be careful not to burn them.

3) Remove the pan from the oven and scrap the nuts up while they are cooling and spread onto a plate so they won't stick together. When the nuts are cool, dry and set, store them in a container in the refrigerator and store up for 3 weeks.

For the sour cream crust:

1 C. all purpose flour

1 pinch salt

8 T. (one stick) cold, unsalted butter

1/2 C. very cold sour cream

1. Combine flour and salt and cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Add the cold sour cream and mix by hand to combine until it it forms a ball. Flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

2. Roll chilled disk into a 12-inch round on a well-floured surface. Place into a 9 inch pie pan and cut overhang down to a 1/2 on all sides. Fold under to create a thicker lip on pie edge and decoratively pinch sides. Once set, chill in freezer for 15 minutes before cooking.

3. While re-chilling the pie, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line pie with parchment paper or foil and fill with pie weights or dry beans. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes and decrease temperature to 300 for another 15 minutes or until golden brown.

For the vanilla pudding:

2 C. whole milk

1/2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise

1/2 C. sugar, divided

pinch of salt

1/2 C. egg yolks (about 6 yolks)

1/4 C. cornstarch

4 T. (½ stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed

1. In a large, heavy, non-reactive saucepan (aluminum reacts and will cause a pudding to turn dingy grey), combine the milk, 1/4 cup of the sugar, the vanilla bean and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the yolks, remaining 1/4 cup sugar and cornstarch until smooth.

2. Have the whisk, a ladle and a large glass or ceramic dish handy. Heat the milk mixture in the saucepan until it just comes to a boil, whisking it a bit as it gets steamy. When you see the first bubbles boiling up, take the pan off the heat and place it on a potholder next to the egg mixture. (To make life a little easier on yourself, put the egg bowl on the right if you're right-handed, or on the left if you're left-handed. Use your stronger arm to whisk; use your weaker arm to ladle the hot milk.

3. During the next steps, stir constantly or the eggs will coagulate and you'll have scrambled eggs. This is quick work. Take a ladle full of hot milk and pour it in a thin stream into the eggs, whisking constantly. Continue stirring, and add a few more ladle fulls of hot milk to the eggs in the same way. The tempered eggs are now ready to add back into the hot milk.

4. To do this, whisk the hot milk constantly and pour the tempered eggs in slowly. When fully combined, put this mixture back on the stove top over medium heat and continue to whisk constantly.The mixture should be ready to come back to a boil very quickly.When the custard nears the consistency of pudding, take very short pauses in stirring to look for signs of a bubble surfacing (it is more like a single volcanic blurp). Don't look too closely, or you'll risk getting spattered with hot pudding. Just stir, pause briefly, stir, and so on.

5. When you see the first blurp, remove the pan from the heat immediately and whisk in the cubes of butter.Whisk until fully combined and immediately pour the pudding into a large glass or ceramic dish to cool it down. While the pudding is still very hot, stretch plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding. Smooth out any air pockets to make the pudding airtight. This will prevent a skin or condensation from forming on top of the pudding. Refrigerate the pudding until completely cold — at least 4 hours.

6. Stir the cold pudding and retrieve the vanilla bean. Squeeze out the excess seeds (those little black specks) in the interior of the pod with your thumb and forefinger — pinch and slide your fingers down the length of the bean, freeing the black seeds as you go. Do this with each half of the bean, returning as many seeds as possible to the pudding.

Putting it all together:

4-5 medium sized bananas (select ripe bananas without any sign of spots or green near the stem)

1 1/2 T. of fresh squeezed lemon juice

1/4 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 C. sour cream

Vanilla pudding

Candied nuts

1. Slice the bananas 1/4 inch thick to get 4 cups and immediately toss in the lemon juice to prevent them from browning. Stir the vanilla extract into the sour cream and gently fold into the bananas. Layer the coated bananas in the pie crust and flatten them. Pour the pudding on top and smooth it with a spatula.

2. Cover the pie in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours before cutting. Serve the wedges of pie cold sprinkled with candied walnuts.

3. Store loosely covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.