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This month, we’re featuring no-bake desserts for warm summer evenings. Today, Alaina of Fabtastic Eats is sharing her family’s recipe for banana cream pie. This combination of bananas, peanut butter and chocolate would be a total crowd-pleaser. Here’s how it’s done…
Banana Cream Pie
by Alania Pouliot of Fabtastic Eats
Banana cream pie is a classic in my eyes. Growing up, my mom made it often, and it was the only pie I would ever touch. (It took me a while to really learn to love pie.) Nowadays this classic is what I always go back to, and now I make it for my own kids.
It seems like these days, everyone’s favorite combination is banana and peanut butter—and if you add a touch of chocolate then we’re really talking! And this banana cream pie has a little something extra: the crust is made from Nutter Butter cookies, all mashed up…I think it’s my favorite part! Then it’s layered with fresh bananas, pudding, topped with peanut-butter whipped cream, and finished off with a drizzle of chocolate syrup.
We had company over for dinner one night and this pie disappeared quickly. It’s fantastic and comes together in a cinch! It’s also a great make-ahead dessert.
Recipe: Banana Cream Pie
You’ll need:
(For the crust)
26 Nutter Butter cookies
4 tbsp. butter, melted
(For the filling)
2 bananas, sliced about ¼” thick
1 oz box vanilla pudding (prepared according to instructions on box—you will need 2 cups milk)
2 cups heavy cream
2 tbsp. sugar
½ tsp. vanilla
¼ cup + 2 tbsp. peanut butter
2 tbsp. mascarpone or cream cheese
chocolate syrup for drizzling (optional)
Add all but two of the cookies to a gallon-sized ziplock bag, seal well. Using a rolling pin, mash the cookies until they have turned into crumbs.
Add the crumbs to a medium sized bowl and drizzle in the melted butter. Toss to fully coat the crumbs. Pour into a 9” pie dish and begin spreading out the crumbs and pressing firmly along the bottom and up the sides of the pie pan to create your crust. Once firm, pop your crust in the freezer while you finish preparing the filling.
Now make your vanilla pudding, according to the instructions on the box. I like to whisk together the contents of the box plus 2 cups of cold milk. It thickens within five minutes and is ready to go.
In a large bowl, add the heavy cream, sugar and vanilla. Begin beating the mixture, either by hand or using an electric mixer. Once it begins to thicken, but isn’t completely whipped cream yet, add the peanut butter and mascarpone. Continue beating the whipped cream until stiff peaks form, then stop. You don’t want to overdo it.
Now that everything has been prepped, remove your crust from the freezer and place the banana slices in an even layer covering the entire crust. Add the vanilla pudding next, evenly spreading it. Top with the peanut-butter whipped cream, using a rubber spatula to push the cream to the edges of the pie. If you’d like, drizzle with chocolate syrup, and crush the remaining two Nutter Butters on top.
Store in the fridge until ready to serve. Enjoy!
Thank you so much, Alaina!
(Photos and recipe by Alaina Pouliot of Fabtastic Eats. Thanks to Caroline Donofrio for helping with this series)
