Bananas for brunch..

I want to talk about brunch. 

Ok, that's not true. I want to talk about me first then about brunch.

Now I've mentioned before that I am a recently converted morning person. I wasn't always like this, no sir, before I was just another lowly late-riser whose idea of breakfast is a bowl of instant noodles at 12 in the afternoon. That's on the weekends of course, weekdays are even worse. What with my morning classes and everything, I hardly have time to take a shower let alone have breakfast. On a good day, I could maybe squeeze in coffee but believe me those days ain't easy to come by. So, morning classes amiss, I decided to make a change. 

I set my alarm clock to 6 am and no matter how late I stayed up the previous night, I would force myself to get out of bed the second it went off. It wasn't easy I tell you. The first couple of days were what they call, a non-starter. You know how it goes, the alarm would ring and instead of putting it on snooze you'd turn it off blah blah blah.. Anyways after a few of those, one sunny Thursday morning, I finally did it. I knew it was a Thursday because my calendar said "Have a tolerable Thursday" and I totally did. I'm kidding, I don't have a calendar that greets you with heart-warming quotes and darling phrases that I hang on my door so I can see it and be uplifted when I go out to school everyday. That is lame and I am not lame. At all.

Long story short, well.. shorter, I now love breakfast. love. It might be my favourite meal of the day. What can I say, I love scrambled eggs, and toast, and cheese, and, once in a while, bacon. Cold foamed-milk and coffee, it's become a habit. I cannot not get up early and do breakfast these days. Not even on the weekends.

I have a point which I'll be making shortly I promise, but before I do I just want to share with you a thought I just had. Breakfast should come with dessert. Right? Am I right? Not dessert for breakfast, that's a totally different thing, but dessert with breakfast. Think about it.. It should be a thing. Man, I wish it was a thing... 

Anyways, where were we? oh yes, given my breakfast habits, you could see why I didn't care much for brunch. Until one Sunday morning, I was eating my breakfast just like every other day when I came to the realization that it wasn't every other day. It's a Sunday and dammit I need some company. No one gets up at 6 am on a Sunday. No one. Well ok, some people. But no one here. And that's when it hit me, I've got some time before everyone wakes up, I'll just make brunch.

Baked sweet and spicy bacon with potatoes

And so that's what I did. I made eggs benedict, bacon and some skillet-fried potatoes. Not the most cardio-friendly items on the planet I admit, but it's a Sunday. And that, my friends, will be the end of my justification.

Quick bacon recipe: Cover bacon with some brown sugar, chilly powder and freshly ground black pepper. Put in a 350 Fahrenheit oven for about 10 minutes. Best bacon ever. There are no photos for the benedict I'm afraid because by the time I remembered to take a picture it was all but gone. Which is just as well because delicious as it was, that benedict will not be the hero of this story. That honour goes to...

Banana Cream Pie, with Mascarpone Custard

That, dear readers, is my magnificent, gloriously indulgent, banana cream pie. Now I must say, I feel calling it a banana cream pie would be a gross act of understatement. I mean, it's not exactly your every day run-of-the-mill banana cream pie. I know, I know, what a snob right? A banana cream pie is a banana cream pie but hear me out. I first learned of the recipe from an article in the New York Times website. I had been looking to make a banana cream pie for a while, I just could never find a recipe that was anything to write home about. So upon reading said article, I was inspired to try and create my own version. 

This pie has a nice, perfectly chewy crust. It uses mascarpone custard and caramelized bananas, so it's a little step up from the traditional banana cream pie recipes but I promise you it's totally worth the effort.

What you need:

The pie crust

• 250 gr digestive biscuits, finely crushed
• 4-5 tablespoon sugar
• 50 gr butter (half a stick), melted
• 1/2 a banana
• 4 tablespoon heavy cream
• an 8-inch pie plate

This is not your ordinary pie crust. For one thing, I used digestive biscuits instead of graham crackers for the simple reason that I couldn't find any. The other thing is, given the nature of a cream pie, I wanted to make the crust just a bit chewier, a nice contrast to the bananas and the cream. Just blitz the banana in the food processor along with the cream then add the rest of the ingredients. Mix well. This makes for a firmer, less crumbly mixture. Press into a pie plate and bake for 10 minutes in a 190° C oven (375 Fahrenheit). Let cool completely before adding the pie filling.

For the fillings

Mascarpone Custard

• 200 gr mascarpone
• 3/4 cup heavy cream, lightly whipped
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/4 cup caster sugar

For the custard, you might want to add 1-2 tablespoon of corn starch to the mixture just to make set firmer during the cooling process. I didn't because I prefer a smooth, runny texture but either way is fine.

First, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a bowl over shimmering water for about 3-4 minutes. Then gently fold the mascarpone into the mixture then the cream. Fold enough until smooth and even-coloured then stop. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it cool for about 45 minutes. Once it's cooled, pour about 2/3 of the custard into the pie crust and refrigerate until it sets (1 or 2 hours). Set the remaining custard aside.

Caramelized Banana

• 3 cups banana, sliced
• butter
• sugar

Cover each banana slice with sugar. Heat skillet with just enough butter to cover the whole surface. Cook the bananas until golden brown on both sides. 

Assembly

Place the bananas on top of the now refrigerated custard pie nice and evenly. Pour the remaining custard on top. Now for maximum taste and texture integration, ideally you want to let the whole thing sit in the fridge for a couple hours maybe overnight. But since we live in the real world, at this point you can go ahead and cover the pie with some whipped cream and serve.

Yields: an 8-inch pie.