This S*it is Bananas

My husband loves banana cream pie. His birthday is in a couple of days so I thought I would attempt a vegan version of the treat for a small dinner party we had with some good friends. In searching for a good vegan recipe, I stumbled upon this blog and decided to give the recipe a test run.

Instead of Nasoya, though, I found a different silken tofu dessert.

The first pie I made was a trial run. The flavor of the tofu dessert is not great. But I followed the directions of the recipe and hoped for the best. The filling was more custard like, definitely not creamy. It tasted like bananas but it was very bland. For the crust I mashed up some graham crackers and added some coconut oil and almond milk. It was just ok, but it would not do for my husband's birthday pie.

For the dinner party, I played around with the ingredients and baking time and succeeded in making a much more delicious pie. Here is what I did:

Graham Cracker Crust

Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly grease pie tins.

11 graham crackers, mashed
4 tbsp Earth Balance, melted
Splash of non dairy milk
2 bananas

 Combine crackers and Earth Balance until crackers are mostly moist. Add a splash of non dairy milk if needed and then form the crust into pie tins (I used 3 small "pot pie" tins. Slice the bananas and layer on top of the crust.

Banana Cream Pie filling

1.5 tbsp arrowroot powder
 1.5 tbsp water
16 oz or 1.5 packages of the tofu dessert seen above
1 tbsp soy creamer
1 tsp vanilla
big pinch of sugar

Whisk the arrowroot and water together into a slurry. Pour into a large bowl and add the tofu dessert, soy creamer, vanilla and sugar. Mix well. Pour into tins, filling each tin about 3/4 full. Bake for 30 minutes. The filling will still be a little jiggly but this is good!

Coconut Milk Whipped Cream Topping

1 14oz can full fat coconut milk
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Refrigerate the coconut milk for at least 4 hours. Carefully open the can and spoon the solid cream into bowl. Using an electric mixer, mix until the cream has slightly bulkened up and then add the powdered sugar and mix well. Spoon over banana filling and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

These were a hit. The filling was creamy and banana-y, the crust was sweet and still a little crunchy and the topping really pulled the whole thing together. This is the first time I've experimented with a baked good (well, a sort of baked good!) and had it gone so well!

The rest of the dinner party featured delicious Indian food, but maybe I'll share that later. The pies were definitely the star.