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Banana Cream Pie with Oatmeal Cookie Crust
A traditional banana cream pie made special with an oatmeal cookie crust.
- Prep Time: 30
- Cook Time: 30
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 10
Ingredients
For the cookie crust
- 6 ounces of crunchy oatmeal cookie crumbs (I used GMommas Buddascotch Oatmeal, but another crunchy oatmeal cookie could be substituted)
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt (depending on salt preference)
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted
For the filling
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1/8 teaspoon table salt
- 1 cup of heavy cream
- 5 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
- 1 1/2 cups milk (2% or whole)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 large bananas
For the topping
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
To prepare the cookie crust
- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees.
- In a food processor or by hand, finely chop cookies/crumbs into a coarse consistency, adding the remaining crust ingredients towards the end. Mix to combine. The mixture should resemble wet, coarse sand.
- Press the crust in to a standard 9″ pie plate. (There will not be enough crumbs to coat a deep dish plate)
- Bake until the crust begins to firm up, about 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool.
To prepare the filling
- Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, and salt together in a medium saucepan.
- Whisk in the egg yolks, followed by the heavy cream and milk, until the mixture is smooth.
- Over medium-low heat, bring the mixture to a simmer, whisking constantly. The mixture will slowly thicken to a loose pudding consistency. Be sure to whisk constantly while mixture thickens, otherwise you will have clumpy pudding as opposed to a uniformly smooth pudding.
- Remove the pan from heat and stir the pudding through a fine mesh strainer to remove any clumps.
- Return the mixture back to the pan, but off the heat, and gently stir in the butter and vanilla.
- Allow mixture to cool slightly, stirring once or twice a minute, for about five minutes.
To assemble the pie
- Thinly slice (about 1/8th”) a layer of bananas over the bottom of the pie crust. I used about 3/4 of a banana for this.
- Spoon half of the pudding mixture on top of the banana layer.
- Repeat the layering of banana slices once more, topping with the remaining pudding.
- Smooth the top and place a piece of Saran wrap directly on top of the pudding. Allow to cool in the refrigerator at least for 4-5 hours, but preferably overnight.
- When ready to serve, whip the remaining heavy cream with a hand or stand mixer, starting on low speed and increasing to high.
- Add sugar along the way and turn the mixer off when stiff peaks have formed.
- On low, stir in the vanilla until combined.
- Keep pie refrigerated until ready to serve and garnish with extra banana if desired!
Notes
- Cooking your filling enough is really important. You’re looking for a consistency similar to a loose pudding. It will thicken slightly as it cools, but you don’t want to quit the cooking process while the filling is still soupy.
- Try to avoid over-stirring the filling after it has been cooked. This can cause it to loosen up.
- Before decorating, I sliced the remaining banana slices and put them in a bath of one cup of water and the juice of half of a lemon. This will slow the browning process and allow you to decorate with bananas a little ahead of time. Note that bananas will still brown slightly given enough time.