TWD: Banana-Coconut Ice Cream Pie

This week's Banana-Coconut Ice Cream Pie was a bit of an odd duck for me. I think a large part of my problem was the name. It had me expecting lush tropical flavors, but then the chocolate ice cream kind of stole the show and overwhelmed everything else. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...) Since I always judge a book by its cover (and usually the summary inside the flap) I didn't really know what to make of my tropical-sounding, conventional-tasting mini tarts. Which is not to say that were bad, just that I am sometimes a very literal person.
The recipe, as written, called for a coconut-shortbread crust, filled with sliced bananas and chocolate ice cream that was mixed with pureed banana. The tart was to be finished with more sliced banana. If you're keeping score at home, that's a whole lot of banana in one little dessert. (And also not nearly enough coconut, but that's only because I'm addicted to the white stuff.)

I halved the recipe and made two mini tarts, since I'm the only one home for two weeks, and even my level of gluttony couldn't handle a whole ice cream pie. Some folks complained that the banana flavor was too much, so I tried two different versions. One, above, had sliced bananas above and below the ice cream, as written. The second, below, just had bananas in the ice cream, and was topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

For my taste, the bananas in the ice cream were enough. The flavor still shone through, but I wasn't eating mouthfuls of freezer banana with every bite. Plus, this gave the coconut more of a chance to shine.

I made the chocolate ice cream using Dorie's recipe for Chocolate-Blueberry Ice Cream (omitting the blueberry preserves.) People, it is AWESOME. Mine turned out pretty hard, but there's also a chance I added too much chocolate, since I kept nibbling it after I'd weighed it out and then had to throw a handful into the bowl to make up for it and might have added too much, and surely I can't be the only one who can't be trusted around a bowl of chopped chocolate while baking? Bueller?

Aaaanyhow, these tarts were great, and a nice, relatively easy summery dessert. I'd do them again without bananas and with the whipped cream in a heartbeat. To get the recipe, head on over to Spike's great blog.