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banana cream pie in a jar
What's better than a slice of pie, you ask? A pie in a jar, of course. You can find this recipe and many more in our cookbook Kids Can Cook Anything!
Prepare Ingredients
Gather Cooking Equipment
- Cutting board
- Chef’s knife
- Ruler
- 2 bowls (1 large, 1 medium)
- Whisk
- Medium saucepan
- Rubber spatula
- Dish towel
- Ladle
- Liquid measuring cup
- Fine-mesh strainer
- Plastic wrap
- Large zipper-lock plastic bag
- Rolling pin
- 1-tablespoon measuring spoon
- 4 (4-ounce) jars or small drinking glasses
Peel 1 banana and place on cutting board. Use chef’s knife to slice banana into ½-inch-thick circles.
In large bowl, whisk sugar, egg yolks, cornstarch, and salt until smooth and pale yellow, about 1 minute.
In medium saucepan, combine half-and-half and sliced banana. Place saucepan over medium heat and cook, stirring occasionally with rubber spatula, until mixture comes to simmer, 5 to 7 minutes (small bubbles should break often across surface of mixture). Turn off heat.
Place bowl with egg yolk mixture on top of damp dish towel. Temper custard following photos below.
How to Temper Custard
Use ladle to measure ½ cup hot half-and-half mixture into liquid measuring cup (ask an adult for help). Slowly pour into egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly (the towel will keep the bowl steady).
Pour warm egg yolk mixture back into saucepan with half-and-half mixture. Return saucepan to medium heat and cook, using rubber spatula to stir gently but constantly, until mixture begins to bubble and is thickened and pudding-like, about 2 minutes. Turn off heat and carefully slide saucepan to cool burner.
Place fine-mesh strainer over medium bowl. Use rubber spatula to scrape custard into fine-mesh strainer (ask an adult for help—saucepan will be heavy and hot). Gently stir and press custard through strainer (do not try to force banana pieces through strainer). Discard solids in strainer.
Add butter and vanilla to custard and whisk until butter is melted. Press sheet of plastic wrap directly onto surface of custard. Place bowl in refrigerator and chill for at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.
Food for Thought
Creamy Custard 101
For a rich, smooth, and creamy custard, we turned to these three tips. First, we use a technique called tempering to slowly warm up the egg yolks so that they thicken the custard but don’t turn into scrambled eggs. Then, we constantly stir the custard as it finishes cooking and press it through a strainer to catch any solid bits. Finally, pressing plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the custard prevents a solid “skin” from forming as it chills.
