Banana Cream Pie
Why I Love This Recipe
This is a lovely dessert, nice enough to serve at a dinner party.
Ingredients You'll Need
150 Gram Shortcrust pastry (5 oz)
2 Eggs, separated
175 Gram Caster sugar (6 oz)
1 1/2 Teaspoon Cornflour
1/2 Tablespoon Butter, melted
300 ml Milk ( 1/2 pint)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla essence
2 Bananas, sliced
Single cream, to serve
Directions
Roll out the pastry on a floured work surface and use to line a 15 cm (6 inch) flan tin. Fill with baking beans and bake blind at 200 °C/ 400 °F/ Gas 6 for 10 minutes. Remove the baking beans and cook for a further 10 minutes until crisp.
Beat the egg yolks, 50g (2 oz) sugar, cornflour and butter in a heatproof bowl, until pale in colour. Bring the milk to the boil then gradually whisk into the egg mixture. Cook the bowl of custard over a pan of simmering water, stirring constantly until thick. Cool. Stir in the vanilla essence.
Arrange most of the banana slices in the bottom of the pastry case, reserving a few for decoration. Pour the custard over the banana slices. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, beat in half the remaining caster sugar and fold in the rest. Pipe meringue on top of the custard, leaving the centre uncovered.
Bake at 150 °C / 300 °F / Gas 2 for 15-20 minutes until the meringue is golden. Arrange remaining banana slices in the centre. Serve cold with fresh cream.
