Banana Cream Pie – Gluten and Lactose Free!
Can you find the banana on this olive wood board? Yeah, that’s how ripe the bunch on my counter was recently, but this is perfect for banana flavor rather than using any extracts or flavor oils. The outside looks gross but the inside is soft, fragrant and yields such pungent taste to anything which you need to add bananas. If you can get past our natural human initial squeamishness about overly ripe foods, you’ll find a whole new way of cooking ahead of you.
As I said in yesterday’s post, I had been craving sweet and creamy desserts. I stumbled onto a banana cream pie recipe that was quite good but it had soooo much dairy in it. I love cow products but they don’t like me so I’d have to do quite a bit of modifying to get this right.
I started off with my Gluten-free/ Dairy free Nilla Wafers. I piped in some leftover dough onto the bottom of a glass pie pan lined with parchment paper and baked it until done. I removed the paper and let the round cool on a rack, looking for all the world like a giant sugar cookie. Once cooled, I put it back into the pie pan and lined the sides with some vanilla wafers.
Next step was peeling the disgusting looking bananas. These suckers were BLACK. But inside, mushy and malleable, very much edible, with a wonderful heady smell of ripe bananas. I whipped these directly into the eggs.
After mixing the bananas and eggs, I let the remaining ingredients boil, stirring constantly to prevent the sugar from burning on the bottom of the pan. This needs to be watched carefully because if you overcook it, the sugar will burn. Also, adding a little bit of the mixture to the banana and eggs before incorporating all of that duo to the boiling custard will prevent scrambled eggs from becoming part of your custard. BLECH!
After transferring custard to bowl set on ice, press plastic wrap directly on top of the custard from the middle to the outer edges, pressing out any bubbles. This prevents the custard from sweating as it cools which would cause condensation and separation of the ingredients.
This dessert is rich enough on its own and doesn’t need extra whipped cream like many recipes call for as a topping. Just chill after cooking and enjoy. I ate a HUGE helping of a smaller single serving I made as a test run. The rest of this deliciousness went to my neighbor and her three daughters. Sorry, Carrie! Hope you got a good run in afterwards. 😉 Just look at the banana threads in this silken pie. The best thing is, you can also enjoy the cookies just like those boxed vanilla wafers you wish you could pig out on!
| Servings | Prep Time |
| 8 people | 10 min |
| Cook Time | Passive Time |
| 15 min | 6 hours at least |
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A deliciously creamy lactose free banana cream pie with homemade vanilla wafers.
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- 1 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3 cups Lactaid or coconut milk
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten
- 2 overly ripe bananas
- 3 TBSP ghee
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 pastry or vanilla wafer shell
- 20 vanilla wafers
- 1 large banana
- Combine the very ripe bananas and eggs, mashing the bananas well. The mixture will become a bit frothy. Set aside.
- In a large saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, salt and chosen milk until smooth. Cook and stir over medium-high heat until thickened and bubbly. Reduce heat; cook and stir 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat.
- Stir a small amount of hot filling into banana/egg mixture; return all to pan.
- Pour about two teaspoons of instant tapioca, stir, and bring all ingredients to a gentle boil; cook and stir 2 minutes longer until mixture thickens a bit more.
- Remove from heat. Gently stir in ghee and vanilla until incorporated. Transfer to a bowl set over ice to cool down quickly. Press plastic wrap onto surface of custard; refrigerate, covered, 30 minutes to an hour.
- Spread half of the custard into vanilla wafer shell. Slice extra bananas, if desired, and arrange over filling. Pour remaining custard over bananas. Refrigerate 6 hours or overnight until set. Enjoy!
What's new, gnu?