Banana cream pie with
sesame toffee crunch
This is the kind of pie that gets me. The kind I fall head over
peel in love with. The buckwheat crust is the ‘edible bowl’
I love and the earthy, toffee sesame crunch is the pie accessory
you never knew you needed. You’ll need one overripe banana
to make the custard and then some perfectly ripe ones to be
cuddled by custard. Go bananas – literally.

In a medium bowl, weigh the super-ripe banana, sugar, cornflour,
vanilla, gelatine and salt. Mash to a lumpy paste with a whisk. Add
the egg yolks and whisk well.

This custard will follow the Cold-start thick custard (page 247) method, so
take a read for added custard confidence!

Lastly, add the milk and cream. Scrape the mix into a 20 cm (8 in)
saucepan.

The teeny lumps won’t matter. If you want super smooth, whiz the
bananas first.
Place the saucepan over a medium–high heat and hand whisk at a
slow pace to allow the heat to suffuse through the mix. Work the small
balloon whisk into the corners of the saucepan (where the custard
thickens first). After around 3 minutes of whisking, the custard will
start to look like a creamy liquid.

Speed up the whisking now – the custard will thicken fast. It will look
lumpy, but just whisk quickly and it will all come together into an
evenly thick paste in another 1 minute.

As soon as it thickens, slow down the whisking and wait for a few
burp-like bubbles to pop over the surface. The custard will look like
stiff mashed potato.

Keeps Chilled for 1 day, then the

bananas will start to brown slightly
more each day.

Makes A pie to serve 6–10.

Takes With a blind-baked crust,

1½–2 hours to make the custard, cool
and fill the crust. Chill for minimum
4 hours or overnight.
½ × batch Super flaky
buckwheat crust (page 76),
rolled into a 25 cm (10 in) pie
dish OR a 23 cm (9 in) round
× 5 cm (2 in) deep tart tin and
blind baked to deep golden
brown
Filling
1 really ripe, half-black banana
(peeled weight 100 g/3½ oz)
+ 3–4 just perfectly ripe
speckled bananas (peeled
weight 500 g/1 lb 2 oz)
80 g (2¾ oz) caster (superfine)
sugar
25 g (1 oz) cornflour (cornstarch)
5 g (⅛ oz/½ teaspoon) vanilla
paste
3 g (¹⁄₁₀ oz/1 scant teaspoon)
powdered gelatine
2 g (¹⁄₁₆oz/¼ teaspoon) fine
sea salt
60 g (2 oz) egg
yolk
(from approx. 3 eggs)
220 g/ml (8 oz) full-cream
(whole) milk
220 g/ml (8 oz) thin cream
(35% milkfat)
60 g (2 oz) unsalted butter,
soft and chopped
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