Banana Custard Pie with Caramelized Sugar
Recipe writer Paola Briseño-González’s rustic banana custard pie, inspired by Yelapa’s beachside pie, is best topped with crackly-crisp sugar brûlée.
- Makes8 to 10 servings
- Cook Time2¼ hours
- Active time plus cooling40 minutes active, plus cooling
- 7
Handmade, freshly baked pies sold by the slice are a specialty of the beach town of Yelapa in Jalisco state on Mexico’s west coast. Inspired by those Yelapa delights, recipe writer Paola Briseño-González created a simple, rustic banana custard pie with a sturdy, sandy-textured crust. We adapted her recipe, blending a banana into the custard mixture instead of only studding it with slices, for a creamy filling suffused with tropical flavor. As with most custard pies, this crust must be prebaked, so you will need pie weights for this recipe (about 2 cups works best to prevent shrinking and slipping during prebaking). And if you own a kitchen torch, this pie is a good reason to dig it out. It’s an optional step, but sprinkling the baked, cooled pie with sugar and brûléeing it until caramelized elevates the dessert, giving it a crackly-crisp surface and a lovely dappled look. Serve slices with lightly sweetened, softly whipped cream. Covered well, leftovers will keep in the refrigerator for up to three days (though if you caramelized the surface, the sugar crust will gradually soften).
Don’t use underripe bananas, but don’t use overripe ones, either. The bananas should be ripe so they’re sweet and creamy but not so ripe that they’re brown and mushy in texture. Don’t make the dough in advance. It’s easiest to work with when just made. Also, don’t roll it too thin; aim for ¼-inch thickness. If the dough tears when putting it into the pie plate, simply patch it; it’s very forgiving that way.
Step 1
Heat the oven to 325°F with a rack in the middle position. Peel the bananas and slice them into ¼-inch rounds. Lay as many slices in the pie shell as will fit in a single, tightly packed layer, then set the pie plate on a rimmed baking sheet. Add the remaining banana slices to a blender, along with the whole eggs plus yolk, milk, condensed milk, vanilla and salt. Blend until smooth, 15 to 30 seconds.
Step 2
Pour the mixture into the pie shell, taking care not to overfill it (some of the banana slices will rise to the surface); the pie shell may not hold all of the filling, depending on how much it shrank during prebaking. Carefully transfer the baking sheet to the oven and bake until the filling is puffed and lightly browned at the edges and the filling jiggles only slightly when the pie plate is gently shaken, 55 to 65 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.
Step 3
If caramelizing the surface, sprinkle the sugar evenly onto the cooled pie. Using a kitchen torch, caramelize the sugar until spotty brown. Serve within an hour, before the sugar crust softens. (The pie also is good served chilled, but if caramelizing the sugar, do so just before serving, as refrigeration will soften the sugar crust.)
