Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Sweet Treat

Before I move on to the next episode in this account of my journey from discouraged diner to gleeful gourmand I would like to say farewell to those early years of bad food by including a recipe of my mother's which provided relief from the heavy, rib-sticking rigours of suet puddings. Banana Cream Pie is a simple, sweet dessert of a type quite common in the seventies: easy to prepare, unsubtle, carelessly calorific and possibly designed more to appeal to a child's palate than an adult's. Having said that I saw plenty of adults go back for seconds whenever mum made this.

The recipe uses three ingredients which are easily found in any British supermarket but which are pretty elusive in the USA. Bird's Custard Powder is magical stuff which makes custard-making a breeze. Of course you don't need it: you can make custard of your own from scratch, just be sure you make it fairly thick.  Lyle's Golden Syrup is a delicious cane syrup which kids in the UK happily spread on bread and eat just like that. My grandfather even used to drizzle it over Yorkshire pudding as a dessert. It's lovely stuff and I recommend you try to find it if you can, but I suppose you could substitute some other type of syrup quite successfully. Finally, we have McVitie's Plain Chocolate Digestive biscuits. These are delicious by themselves (especially with an afternoon cup of tea) and are a staple in biscuit tins across the UK. When I first started visiting the US I would always bring about five packs with me because Ann and her kids loved them, and in those days you just couldn't get them here. Happily, you now can, although you may have to do a bit of hunting. Should you fail to locate them, try any sort of crumbly wholewheat biscuit/cookie and add a little crumbled dark chocolate. The only other ingredient my American friends may find puzzling is castor sugar, and the link should explain everything they need to know about that.

So I made this recently and it turned out just like I remembered it. Ann's daughter Sophie (whose birthday it is today - happy birthday Sophie!) had three portions, and I take that as an unarguable sign of success. Here's the recipe in my mother's own words (except for a few places where I excised some of the more potentially baffling Brit-isms. I've been out here in the States for so long I've started to forget how funny they talk back in the old country.)

Banana Cream Pie
Serves 6

PIE SHELL

6 oz plain chocolate homewheat biscuits
1.5 oz butter
3 level tablespoons golden syrup

Crush biscuits between 2 sheets of greaseproof paper, using a rolling pin.

Put the butter and syrup into a saucepan. Stir over a low heat until melted.  Remove from heat; add the crushed biscuits and mix well.  Press into base and around side of an 8 in. pie plate (lightly grease the base with butter first; it helps the slices come out cleanly). Leave in a cool place to set.

FILLING

3 level tablespoons custard powder
3/4 pint milk
2 level tablespoons castor sugar
2 - 3 ripe bananas
1 small (3 - 4 oz) carton double (whipping) cream

Put the custard powder in a saucepan and mix to a smooth paste with a little of the milk over low heat; gradually blend in remaining milk.  Bring to boil, stirring, and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in sugar. Cover with a piece of dampened greaseproof paper and leave to cool (this takes the skin off  when cool but I usually just scrape it off with a spoon).

Peel and slice bananas; reserve 5 slices for decoration and place remainder in biscuit crumb shell.

Whisk cream until stiff and fold half into custard; pile custard over bananas.  Pile remaining cream in the centre (or get fancy with a piping bag and decorate as creatively as you like)

DECORATION

2 oz plain chocolate ( or milk if preferred)
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Break up chocolate and place in a dry basin over a saucepan of hot (but not boiling) water; stir occasionally until melted.  Dip remaining 5 slices of banana into the melted chocolate to half cover each slice; place on a piece of greaseproof paper to set. Brush uncovered half of bananas with lemon juice.

Spread remaining chocolate thinly on a marble slab or plastic work top; leave to set. Scrape off the slab with a sharp knife held at an angle of 45 deg.  to form rolls. Sprinkle these rolls over cream. (Jack note: this failed miserably for me. Fortunately the pie is just as good sprinkled with crumbled chocolate flakes. Ahem.) Arrange the chocolate banana slices on custard. Serve cold.

(Previously) Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Late Developments

(Next) Bad Teeth and Lousy Food: Vivat Membrum Quodlibet

Comments

[Manggy]

I saw this on my RSS feed and though, "No. Banana Cream Pie can't be British. It's not rolling around in treacle/ golden syrup!" Naw, I kid. (And it turns out it does have golden syrup. Ha.)

I tried a custard powder (not Bird's, though I did see one on a resort island of all places). I think it was made in Hong Kong/ China. Instructions: One rounded tablespoon with 3 tablespoons milk, stir to dissolve. Then boil a pint of milk and add it in. --> Wow. It totally looks like yellow milk. No change. Did I do something wrong? Should it be cooked always? Is the custard powder not any good? I ended up using the milk (waste not) in some real stovetop custard, with good old-fashioned egg yolks and cornstarch (there's cornstarch in the custard powder, so naturally it came out chunky).

The chocolate scrolls should be done when the chocolate is 37°C. Which as I understand Western weather, should occur half a second after you've poured the chocolate on the marble surface :) You may have better luck with a block of chocolate for a while under an electric blanket, then shaved with a vegetable peeler.

[Lisa]

Happy Birthday to Sophie! Snowed in here and baking chocolate/raspberry thumbprints....xox

[Adele]

Ooh. This looks tasty. :)

I am probably going to feel compelled to track down golden syrup to make Anzac biscuits in April, so it's nice to know that it's available in this country.

[Jack]

Manggy - yeah, I quickly realised I'd let the chocolate get too cold on the slab. And while I was creating chocolate shrapnel and cursing, Ann silently held a block of the chocolate in front of my face and shaved off a perfect curl with the potato peeler. She's cruel, that woman!

Sounds to me like your custard powder was dodgy, or you needed to use more. Birds' has never let me down; it always thickens nicely.

Lisa - you're lucky to have snow. We have something like a cross between sleet and drizzle. Slizzle.

Adele - It's surprisingly tasty, especially the syrupy, chocolatey, biscuity base. I could eat that by itself, to be honest!

[Sophie]

This pie was amazing! I think it's my new favorite dessert ever.

[Jack]

Sophie - you should have a go at making it next time you're over!

[Jack]

Manggy - I just noticed that your custard powder instruction only said to add the hot milk but not simmer it until it thickens. I bet that's the problem. You have to do that.

[Marla]

Ohhhh I think I can find all those ingredients at my local grocery store. I know they have the biscuits and the syrup ... the custard powder looks suspiciously familiar too. Banana creme pie is my f-in-law's favorite -- and if I make this for him, I might be able to dodge seeking and failing to find an appropriate birthday gift (his birthday is on Christmas Day). Thanks!

[Deborah Dowd]

I absolutely love Lyle's, and this recipe sounds terrific! Great blog, I'll be back!

[Jack]

Deborah - thanks for dropping by. Good to see some American Lyle's appreciators! It really is a hell of a tasty syrup. Off to check out your blog now...

[Marla]

Okay -- found the syrup, found the biscuits -- no luck with the custard powder -- found Ambrosia Devon Custard and figured it might be close enough. Was so pleased with the custard that I FORGOT to add the whipping cream and so the pie never stabilized and thus became a pudding instead -- plopped it into irish coffee cups and topped it with the aforementioned forgotten whipping cream. On the plus side, the crust was delicious! Definitely a re-do is in order. Thanks!

[Jack]

Marla - nice try, by the sound of it! Even if the custard doesn't work out quite right the ingredients still taste good, and that crust is definitely a killer.

The cream doesn't thicken the custard though, so it sounds like your problem was more with the custard itself than forgetting to mix the cream into it. Was it a ready made-up one or some other brand of powder?

[Marla]

It was prepared -- canned (sheepish grin) -- tasted great though -- I figured the whipping cream might give it a bit of stiffness -- the last time I made banana cream pie I used a vanilla pudding which turned out quite nice. One way or the other, I'm definitely repeating the crust! Besides, my f-in-law and daughter are more than happy to eat as many banana-cream-not-quite-perfect-pies as I can manage.

[Marla]

Found it! I found Bird's custard powder. I'll be trying this out again on Sunday. Hooray!