Tuesdays With Dorie: Banana Cream Pie

Banana. [Pastry] Cream. Pie. Three things that I'm not usually psyched to see on my dessert plate. But, through the alchemy of Dorie Pixie Magic and a limitless love of sweets, no matter how mediocre, I ended up thinking this pie was pretty darn good.

I made a half recipe and made two mini deep-dish pies, because I was expecting us not to like this much and didn't want to commit to a whole full-sized pie. I've actually never made a banana cream pie before (see above re: not liking the ingredients) but I gather that this recipe was fairly typical. The only changes between this and a typical banana cream pie were that the pastry cream was slightly spiced, and the whipped cream topping had a little sour cream to give it tangy richness.
I'm not a custard person, but I did like this pastry cream. It was made with brown sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg, and had a great flavor. I halved the cornstarch (because seriously, that was WAY too much cornstarch!) and the resulting texture was gorgeously smooth, like a rich pudding. (Also gorgeous? The daffodils that have remained in bloom for the better part of the week. They have nothing to do with banana cream pie and everything to do with adding a bit of eye candy to the photos.)

I added a layer of melted chocolate to the bottom of the pie crust, because a) when does chocolate not improve things? and b) these pies were so deep, I could have stuck a whole pan of fudge and a pint of ice cream in there and there would still have been room for the cream and bananas.

So after all was said, done, and tasted, we liked it pretty well. I still had my usual complaints about custard and cream-based desserts (not enough texture, too slimy in the mouth) but the flavors were great, and the pie crust is consistently excellent. So I would bookmark this to make for a banana cream pie lover, but probably won't be revisiting it for myself any time soon.