Chocolate Banana Cream Pie, the things I do for love!

My bf’s favorite pie is chocolate cream pie, especially the one made by his great-grandmother. It’s actually really good, and I said that because I’m not a fan of chocolate. I actually didn’t start eating chocolate at all until middle school, and even then only ate really, really good chocolate. I don’t get this craze about crappy bland commercial cheap milk chocolate (how’s that for a “mouthful”? hah!……no? Ok.) In Boston we’re blessed with a decent local chocolate company (Taza), and several good cafes that sell amazing hot chocolate. It’s the super thick, creamy kind with spices, not the bland watery kind that Americans run on (for New Englanders: yes I am hating on Dunkin’ Donuts; sorry?) If you’re gonna go chocolate, why not go all the way? Seriously, guys.

Anyway, back to bf. So we discovered that Whole Foods sell goat milk (we don’t go there a lot, it’s Whole Wallet to me). Bf’s grandmother made this amazing banana cream pie sometimes at holiday dinners, with goat milk, and we thought, why not try? I surprised my bf with the chocolate part (also because I’m sort of addicted to the expresso chocolate banana smoothies at Starbucks). My, the things I’d do for love!…Just kidding. It was probably for me just as much as it was for him – because, man, this is DELICIOUS.

The recipe was adapted from http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/aida-mollenkamp/double-banana-cream-pie-recipe/index.html. I started adding butter until I realized I didn’t quite need it; the pudding was rich all by itself. I also used molasses instead of brown sugar, added chocolate, and did not use kahlua because we didn’t have them, although coffee whipped cream sounds like an awesome idea.

Ingredients
4 ripe bananas
1 disc of Taza chocolate, or about 1 oz of any chocolate you want
3 tbs of molasses (or to taste)
2 cups of goat milk (or whole cow milk; but goat milk is sooo good! and won’t make you poop 🙂 )
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup corn starch (we used mung beans starch, just because we didn’t have any corn starch)
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used half a vanilla bean, which takes so much time to scrape off, and whoever said real vanilla beans make a difference is a douchebag.)
A pinch of salt
Pie shell (yes, I cheated and bought one from Whole Food, and you should do that too. You can’t pay me to bake anything. I hate science and the inability to improvise, and yes, I am a scientist. But not in pastry arts!)
Heavy cream, whipped into whipped cream (optional)

1. Blend 1 banana, chocolate, corn starch, molasses, egg yolks, salt, vanilla, and milk in a blender.
2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir on medium heat till boils slightly, then simmer till thicken (happens very fast thanks to the starch). Make sure the chocolate is all melted.
3. Cool the mixture and pour into pie shell. Slice up the rest of the bananas and distribute evenly on top of the custard.
4. Refrigerate until set. Topped with whipped cream if so desired.