Favorite Banana Cream Pie with a Banana Graham Cracker Crust

My wonderful mom's birthday was last week, and we celebrated this past weekend at a winery with my family and a couple of her closest friends. We promised her no party, so that's the closest we could get to celebrating without getting her upset :)

As I've said before, each member of my family is assigned another family member's birthday cake (of their choosing) to make for their birthday celebration. I had my mom this year, and she chose a banana cream pie since that's her favorite dessert. I found this recipe and decided to give the pie a graham cracker crust instead of what the original recipe called for. I added some mashed banana into the crust mixture and it added a hint of banana flavor which was excellent with the creamy, dreamy pie. This is definitely a keeper. Enjoy!

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

For the crust:

• 2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup banana, mashed
• 4 tbsp. (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

For the pie:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 cups 2% milk
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 tbsp. butter
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 4 large firm bananas
• 1 cup whipped cream

For the crust: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Stir graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and mashed banana in large bowl to blend. Add melted butter and stir to moisten evenly. Press onto bottom and up sides of 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish. 

Bake crust until set and pale golden, about 15 minutes. Cool completely.

For the pie: In a large saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, salt and milk until smooth. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat. Stir a small amount of hot filling into eggs; return all to pan. Bring to a gentle boil; cook and stir 2 minutes longer.

Remove from heat. Gently stir in butter and vanilla. 

Pour custard into a ceramic or glass dish. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard; refrigerate, covered, 30 minutes.

Spread 1/3 of the custard into pastry shell. Slice bananas; arrange half of them over filling. Pour another 1/3 of the custard offer the banana layer. Arrange remaining banana slices over custard and cover with remaining custard. 

Spread with whipped cream. Refrigerate 6 hours or overnight. Spread with whipped cream then serve immediately. Garnish with extra banana slices, if desired.

Source: Adapted from Taste of Home