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Banana Cream Pie
2 C milk 3 T cornstarch, mixed with 3 T water Yolks 2 eggs, mixed with 1 t cold water Butter size of walnut Put milk and sugar on stove to boil. Add cornstarch, mixed with water, and yolks of eggs mixed with the water, also butter, to the boiling milk. Put layer of sauce in baked pastry shell, then layer of bananas, then another layer of sauce. Use whites of eggs for frosting. Mrs. Fern Gover.
Note: Mrs. Leonard Disney omits the water and uses only 2 T cornstarch. 1 pt.
A cornstarch custard poured over sliced bananas in a blind-baked shell. The abbreviations are standard for a church cookbook of this era: C is cup, T tablespoon, t teaspoon.
- The sugar is missingSugar is called for in the method but never quantified in the ingredient list, a common lapse in community cookbooks where the contributor worked from memory. For 2 cups of milk, 1/2 to 2/3 cup of sugar is the usual proportion for a cream pie filling; adjust to the ripeness of the bananas.
- Butter size of walnutAbout 1 tablespoon, shelled walnut rather than whole. It goes in for gloss and flavour, not structure, so the exact amount is forgiving.
- Temper the yolksThe instruction to add yolks straight to boiling milk will scramble them. Whisk a ladle of the hot milk into the yolk mixture first, then return it all to the pan, whisking.
- The filling must actually boilCornstarch does not reach full thickening power until the mixture bubbles, and a brief hard boil also destroys the enzyme in raw yolk that would otherwise thin the custard on standing. Hold it at a slow bubble for a minute, stirring constantly, or the pie will weep.
- The alternate versionThe printed note records only that Mrs. Disney omits the slurry water and uses 2 tablespoons of cornstarch instead of 3, for a softer set. The trailing line (1 pt. fresh milk, yolks 2 eggs, 2 T flour) is not identified in the text as part of her variant and reads as the ingredient list of a separate recipe; 1 pint is the same 2 cups of milk.
- BananasSlice them at the last moment and layer them into warm, not hot, filling. Fully ripe but firm fruit holds its shape; overripe bananas turn to grey paste against the custard within a day.
- The meringue"Use whites of eggs for frosting" assumes a meringue: beat the two whites to soft peaks with about 4 tablespoons sugar, spread it so it seals to the crust edge all round, and bake at 350F for 12 to 15 minutes until browned. Do not leave the whites raw on the finished pie.
- Yield and holdingEnough for one 9-inch shell, six to eight slices. Cut it the day it is made; cornstarch fillings and bananas both deteriorate badly overnight.
Banana cream pie belongs to the moment when bananas stopped being a luxury. Refrigerated steamships and a national rail network brought Central American fruit into ordinary Midwestern grocery stores in the decades around 1900, cheaply enough that a church supper could count on them, and cornstarch — sold in boxes as a reliable branded product from the late nineteenth century — gave home cooks a custard that set firmly without the fuss of an all-egg filling. The result is a pie built almost entirely from pantry goods plus one piece of imported fruit. The two attributions on a single page, with Mrs. Disney's variant appended as a note, are typical of the form, where the compiler printed what each contributor sent and let the reader decide.