Banana cream pie
50 min · 13 g protein · 352 cals / serving
The diner classic in full: a buttery graham cracker crust, layers of sliced ripe bananas and thick vanilla pastry cream, and a soft layer of whipped cream on top. The pastry cream is cooked with skim milk and finished with Greek yogurt and a scoop of vanilla protein, which give it body and a faint tang that suits the bananas; the topping is half whipped cream, half Greek yogurt, and there are more bananas than usual.
Ingredients
Crust
- 8 full sheets graham crackers, crushed to crumbs (about 1 1/2 cups)
- 4 tbsp butter, melted
Pastry cream
- 2 cups skim milk
- 1/3 cup + 1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup + 1/2 tbsp cornstarch
- 2 eggs
- a pinch salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp unsalted butter
- 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
- 1 scoop casein protein powder, vanilla
- 3 medium bananas, ripe but firm, sliced
Greek yogurt cream
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/3 cup + 1 tbsp whole-milk Greek yogurt
- 2 tbsp powdered sugar
Steps
- Heat the oven to 350°F. Mix the graham crumbs and melted butter until it looks like wet sand, press it firmly over the bottom and up the sides of a 9 inch deep pie dish with the bottom of a cup, and bake 10 minutes. Cool completely.
- In a saucepan, whisk the milk, sugar, cornstarch, eggs and salt together before you turn on the heat, so the cornstarch cannot lump. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it thickens and bubbles, then keep whisking for 1 minute more so the starch loses its raw taste and the eggs are fully cooked.
- Off the heat, whisk in the vanilla and butter. Scrape into a bowl, press cling film onto the surface and cool 30 minutes. Whisk the protein powder into the Greek yogurt until smooth, then fold it into the still-warm pastry cream with a spatula; whisking hard once the cream has set thins it.
- Arrange half the banana slices over the crust, spread over half the pastry cream, then repeat. Press cling film onto the surface and chill at least 4 hours, until set enough to slice.
- Just before serving, whip the cream with the powdered sugar to soft peaks, then fold in the whole-milk Greek yogurt and spread it over the pie in swoops.
Good to know
How do I keep the bananas from going brown?
Slice them right before layering and cover them completely with pastry cream; sealed in, they stay pale for a day. Leftover pie keeps 2 days in the fridge, which is about as long as bananas allow.
Can I skip the whipped cream?
You can top the pie with a thin layer of extra banana and a few crushed graham crumbs instead. It is less of a diner pie, at about 24 instead of 21.
Why add the yogurt after cooking?
Boiled, yogurt splits and goes grainy, and protein powder turns lumpy. Whisked into the cooled pastry cream both stay smooth, thicken it and add a little tang.
Alternative
Per
- Calories
- 167
- Protein
- (14%)
- 6 g
- Fat
- (35%)
- 6 g
- Carbohydrates
- (51%)
- 21 g
- of which sugar
- 14 g
- Fiber
- 1 g
- Sodium
- 117 mg
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Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How
As written, 2817 kcal goes into the pot and 1729 g of ingredients comes out as about 1690 g of food: 167 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.