Salted Caramel and Chocolate Ganache Banana Cream Pie

A new post for the new year!  I am a bad blogger...this is just a fact.  I do have good reasons though.  Reason #1 I am adjusting to a new job and trying to strike a balance between work and my personal life.  Even though I've been at my new job for almost 8 months (time has gone by so quickly), I still find that I am struggling, as I'm sure I will continue to struggle in the future.

Reason #2 I don't like the photos I take.  This seems like something that should be easy to do, but apparently it's not, or maybe my expectations are too high.

Reason #3 I GOT MARRIED!  Ah!  Seriously, so much of my time went into planning and preparing for the wedding that I really haven't had much time for blogging.  Did I mention that I got married?!?  No?  Silly me; reason #4 I GOT MARRIED!

But seriously, now that the honeymoon is over, I've spent some time trying to edit the hundreds of photos I have taken recently, in the hopes of blogging these recipes.  Last night I started editing photos for a delicious recipe that I found while wasting time on pinterest.com.  If you have not visited this website, let me warn you, DO NOT GO...it is a time sucking, yet awesome website.

This recipe has a lot of steps, but the end product is so worth the effort.  Enjoy!

The Ingredients (minus the chocolate)

Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate

Mix together after letting sit

Pour the ganache over the crust

Add the sliced banana and a layer of salted caramel

Add the pastry cream over the banana/caramel layer,
top with whipped cream, swirl caramel into the whipped cream,
and add the remaining sliced bananas on top. 

Ingredients

Graham Cracker Crust
1 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs (10 or 11 whole crackers)
1 teaspoon sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Ganache Layer
1/2 cup heavy cream
3 ounces bittersweet chocolate (about 1/2 cup chocolate chips)

Pastry Cream
1 2/3 cups whole milk
¼ cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped out and reserved (I used 1 Tbsp of vanilla bean paste)
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Salted Caramel Sauce
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon water
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel (or kosher salt)

Items Needed for Assembly
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons powdered sugar
3 medium bananas

Directions
1.  Preheat the oven to 325 F.

2.  Combine the crumbs and sugar in a bowl.  Then add the melted butter and mix until the crumbs are moistened. 

3.  Transfer the mixture into a 9-inch pie pan (I used a tart pan) and press the crumbs evenly over the bottom and up the sides.  Note: the edges of the shell will be crumbly.
4.  Bake until lightly browned, 10-12 minutes. Cool completely.

For the ganache

5.  Set the chocolate into a bowl; heat the heavy cream to boiling point and pour over the chocolate. 

6.  Let the cream/chocolate mixture stand a couple of minutes and gently stir until fully incorporated and glossy.  It should be the consistency of warmed chocolate syrup. 

7.  Cool to room temperature.

8. Pour over the cooled pie crust and refrigerate.

For the pastry cream
9.  Combine the milk, ¼ cup of sugar, and the vanilla bean and seeds or vanilla bean paste in a medium saucepan.  Bring to a simmer over medium heat.  Note: if the vanilla bean is hardened, put the entire bean in the saucepan so that it softens as the milk warms up. Once it’s pliable again, remove the pod, split it in half, and scrape the seeds out. Then add everything back into the saucepan until the mixture simmers.
10. While the mixture simmers, sift the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar together with the cornstarch in a small bowl. Then, in a large bowl, whisk together the egg and two egg yolks.
11. When the milk comes to a simmer, strain out the vanilla bean pod.
12. Add the cornstarch mixture to the eggs and whisk until well combined.
13. While whisking the egg/cornstarch mixture, slowly pour in about one-quarter of the milk in order to temper the egg mixture.
14. Transfer this mixture to the saucepan, set over low heat, and simmer, whisking constantly, until it reaches the consistency of thick pudding, taking care not to curdle the eggs.
15. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until incorporated. If the mixture isn’t quite as smooth as you’d like, you can always run it through a sieve.
16. Pour into a shallow bowl, place plastic wrap directly on the surface, and chill.

For caramel sauce
17.  In a heavy saucepan set over medium-high heat, stir together sugar and water.  Use a pastry brush and water to brush down any sugar crystals off the side of the pan.  Bring the sugar water to a boil and boil until amber-colored.  

**Note: once the mixture starts changing color, watch it closely because it will burn quickly.  If you accidentally burn the caramel, start over.  Sugar and water are cheap and this is a relatively easy and quick step.  The darker the color, the more caramel the flavor; the ligher the color the more butterscotch the flavor**

18.  Once the color is right, immediately add butter and stir to incorporate.  Remove from the heat, add cream and salt (be careful, as it will splatter), and mix well.  It should be smooth and have a syrup-like consistency.  Let cool to room temperature.

For assembly
19.  Using an electric mixer or a whisk, whip the heavy cream into peaks.  Add powdered sugar and incorporate. 

20.  Transfer the pastry cream to a large bowl and whisk until smooth.  Then fold in about half of the whipped cream.
21.  Line the bottom of the pie crust with approximately two bananas sliced into rounds on a diagonal.  

22. Slice half of the remaining banana into rounds on a diagonal for garnish.
23. Roughly chop the remaining half banana and fold into the pastry cream.
24. Drizzle a thin layer of caramel sauce over the bananas.
25. Spoon the pastry cream evenly into the crust.
26. Mound the remaining whipped cream on top and drizzle some caramel sauce over the whipped cream, swirling it decoratively.
27. Decorate with remaining banana slices.
28. Chill and serve within 24 hours. The remaining caramel sauce can be used when plating the pie.


Recipe courtesy of lickmyspoon.com

Bananas Foster Banana Bread

Well folks, it happens too often to me, and I'm sure it does to you too...old, almost rotten, nasty bananas that have sat too long on the counter to be edible.  You know the kind I am talking about.  Bananas that are so brown they're almost black...they're mushy and vomit-inducing.  Bananas like these?

Gross, right?  But those babies make the best, moist, delicious banana bread you've ever tasted!  So, if you have 3-4 nasty bananas that need to be used, make yourself a delicious batch of banana bread rather than throwing them away.  Additionally, if you don't have the time to make the bread, throw the bananas in the freezer until you need them, then defrost overnight and use in the recipe as usual.

What I enjoy about this recipe is that it is a grown-up version of a delicious treat.  It is grown-up because it contains rum!  Delicious rum!  Additionally, it is healthy, as it contains ground flax seed; but don't worry, it still tastes unhealthy :)  So next time you're in the mood for banana bread, give this adult version a try.

Bananas Foster Banana Bread 

Your ingredients

Add the mashed bananas, melted butter, rum, and brown sugar; bring to a boil.

Mix the cooled banana mixture, yogurt, remaining brown sugar, and eggs together.

Sift the flour, flaxseed, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice together.

Blend the wet and dry ingredients.  Don't the flax seeds look good?

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of mashed ripe bananas (I used three bananas)

1 cup packed brown sugar, divided

5 tablespoons of butter, melted

1/4 cup of dark rum or cognac

1/3 cup plain, fat-free yogurt

2 large eggs
6 3/4 ounces of all-purpose flour (~1 1/2 cups)
1/4 cup ground flaxseed
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

Glaze
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon dark rum or cognac

Directions
1.  Preheat oven to 350 F.
2.  Combined melted butter, banana, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and rum or cognac in a non-stick skillet and cook over medium heat until mixture begins to bubble.  Take off of heat and allow to cool. 
3.  After cooled, put mixture in a large bowl and add the yogurt, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and eggs and beat at medium speed until combined.
4.  Weigh flour and combine with the ground flax seed, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and allspice.
5.  Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture and blend.
6.  Pour batter into a loaf pan (9-inch x 5-inch) that is coated with cooking spray.
7.  Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick in the center comes out clean.  Remove from oven and cool.
8.  Make the glaze and drizzle over warm bread.

Enjoy!

Banana Cream Pie

As promised, the second post for the actual pie aspect of this series :)  This is my favorite type of pie, banana cream pie, which was given to me by the mother of one of my best friends.  It's quite easy, but I remember making it once for Pat's family and telling them how easy it was...he mom was like "you're making the custard from scratch!"  As it, it can't be that easy ;)  I have made a few modifications to the recipe, which is how I will post the recipe.  I hope you enjoy this pie as much as I do and if you're too busy to make the whole pie, you can always buy the crust from the freezer section...I won't tell ;)

Ingredients

Ingredients

1/2 cup white sugar

6 tablespoon all purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon of salt

2 1/2 cups milk--I use skim milk, although it would probably taste much more rich using whole milk.

1 egg

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 vanilla bean or 1 tablespoon of vanilla bean extract or 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

3 ripe bananas

1 pre-baked 9-inch pie shell--deep dish works best, but I used a regular pie shell.

1/2 cup of heaving whipping cream, whipped

Directions

1.  Mix the flour, sugar, and salt together in the top of a double boiler.

2.  Slowly stir in the milk and cook over boiling water until thickened, stir constantly.

Custard before it thickens.

3.  After the custard thickens, cover the mixture for 10 minutes and stir occasionally, every 2 minutes works well.

4.  Beat the egg in a small bowl.  Add a small amount of the custard to the egg to prevent the egg from scrambling once added to the custard.  Combine the egg mixture to the custard and mix constantly for 2 minutes over hot water, not boiling water.

5.  Remove from heat and add the butter and vanilla.

Custard after the addition of all ingredients

6.  Allow mixture to cool for a few minutes.

7.  Slice and arrange the small amount of the bananas in the bottom of the crust shell in an even layer.  Cover the bananas with a portion of the custard.  Arrange another even layer of the bananas on top of the custard.  Cover the bananas with the remaining custard.

8.  Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

9.  Cover with whipped cream if desired just prior to serving--enjoy!

Completed Pie without Whipped Cream

Here's a new addition to the blog--it's called Don't Let my Mistakes Happen to You!  What is it, is the part of my blog where I tell you what happened/went wrong while I was making the recipe.  So, enjoy and hopefully you'll learn from my mistakes.

Don't Let my Mistakes Happen to You!

I've done the whole, adding a small amount of the hot mixture to the egg thing to prevent scrambling, or cooking the egg, before and never had a problem, except this time...of course, when I need it to be perfect for my blog...wah wah.  Thankfully, it was only mildly scrambled, so it didn't affect the taste of the pie.  I recommend preventing this in the future by adding a larger amount of the custard to the beaten egg.  Then, I would make sure the water wasn't boiling in the double boiler (I think mine was boiling) before adding the egg mixture to the custard.  Theoretically, this should prevent this problem in the future.

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Well...here I am...posting my first actual evidence of my baking prowess. HA!

I have to admit, the product turned out tasting great--moist, chock-full-o banana flavor, and delicious chocolatey goodness. In fact, there are two boys (well adults really, but put a sweet treat in front of them, and this is what you get) in my kitchen right now fighting over said bread as I type. However, my pictures of said prowess...well, they leave a lot to be desired, which I suppose is part of the learning process for a baking blog.

Any-who, the recipe is adapted from the baking book "A Passion for Baking" by Marcy Goldman. I just bought this book and I am in LOVE!!! Here is the recipe with the adaptations that I made.

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
1 c. sugar
2 large eggs
1 c. mashed very ripe banana
**For this, I just used two ripe bananas mashed--I didn't measure it out.














1/4 sour cream
**I used Greek yogurt instead


1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
**I used pure Madagascar vanilla...yummy
2 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4. tsp salt
**I use kosher salt
1 c. chopped walnuts
**I used 1 c. of milk chocolate chips instead.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F and spray a 9" x 5" loaf-pan with nonstick spray.
2. In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until well blended. Add eggs, banana, Greek yogurt, and vanilla. Fold in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Scrape bowl to ensure that the mixture is well blended. Add the chocolate chips and stir by hand.
3. Pour batter into pan and bake for 50-55 minutes until bread springs back when pressed with fingertips.
4. Cool for 2o minutes in the pan and then turn out onto a cooling rack.

*Note: I learned a great trick to quickly mashing your bananas...using a pastry cutter! Seriously...it's sooooo easy, so try it next time you need to mash something. This would even work well for making guacamole!
And...for the finished product...drum roll please!
Well folks, that's all for now. Remember, any hint or suggestions (especially for these pictures), please let me know!

Cheers!