Recipe

Banana Cream Pie in a Coconut Crust

My mom's birthday is on leap year, so there is no Feb. 29th this year, so we celebrated it yesterday. She wanted pie instead of cake, so this I made upon her request and it was good. Don't judge the recipe by the photo.

Coconut Crust
4 T butter
1 1/2 c. sweetened coconut
1 T flour
1 T sugar

Melt butter in skillet over med-low heat. Add coconut, flour and sugar. Mix it around over medium heat until combined thoroughly. Press into pie pan to form the crust (back of spoon works well). Bake at 375 for 10 minutes or until bottom just begins to brown as coconut toasts. Let cool.

*You could also use regular pie crust, obviously

Banana Cream Pie Filling

2 1/2 c. milk
1/3 c. cornstarch
3 egg yolks
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 c. sugar
1 T milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 T butter
2-3 ripe bananas, sliced

Cream Pie Variations:
Coconut-Banana Cream Pie:
add 1/4 c. coconut at the end right before refrigeration
Coconut Cream Pie:
add 3/4 c. coconut at the end right before refrigeration, leave out bananas
Chocolate Cream Pie:
add 2 T cocoa with sugar, and eggs. Leave out bananas.

Heat milk in microwave 4 minutes. In small bowl combine cornstarch, yolks, salt, sugar and 1 T milk. Add to warm milk and whisk until smooth.
Microwave for 30 sec intervals until thickened. Add vanilla, butter, and coconut at this point if you like it.
Cover with plastic wrap (to avoid pudding skin) and let cool in refrigerator.
When ready to serve, slice bananas into pudding, pour in pie shell and top with whipped cream. Due to the temporary nature of ripe bananas, this pie does not store well and should be assembled within 2 hours of serving.

I am a sloppy cook and not too particular, so using the microwave is fast and works for me. You could bring the custard to boil in a saucepan too, probably the more appropriate chef method. As far as making sure how thick the custard needs to be to determine when you stop cooking it: I stop when it is thick enough it globs in a whisk and will still pour through slowly. If you grab a glob with a whisk and it falls right through, keep cooking. If you grab a glob with the whisk and you have to shake the whisk for the custard to fall through, you've cooked too much.

In my experience, you can cook it a little too much: when it is cooled it will be a little firm, closer to jello but you can stir it a bunch before you add the bananas and it works. But if you don't cook it enough, you have liquid pie--gross. My friend Danielle L. can testify to that from the occasion we invited them over for dinner and all I had to offer was banana cream soup in a pie shell.

Hope you like it. My mom got this recipe from a Mrs. Holmstead who was her youth church leader in the 70s and we like this pie.

Oh, I hate coconut cream pie. I hate the grainy texture the coconut has, kind of like floaties in my pie. But the coconut crust was awesome. Crunchy and sweet and gave the good coconut flavor without the nasty texture. Also, I used grated coconut which is really fine, almost like coconut crumbs, but my mom's used flaked with the same results, so doesn't really matter. I wouldn't use shaved coconut because those are huge flakes and would be hard to press down smoothly.
You can also just leave out the measly 1 T flour and have a gluten free dessert, doesn't make a difference really. Oh, and if you're eating pie--you are having dessert so don't ruin it by topping with "whipped topping". Use the real stuff--cream you whip with sugar, and yes it may stick to your thighs but it will sure taste good going down. It's all about portion control...or so I hear because I ate 1/4 the pie last night and feel hypocritical telling you it's about portion control. I guess for me last night it should have been about portion control. But hey-it was a birthday.