Food

There are times when right down to the tops of your sneakers, what you want is a dessert that has basically no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I don’t know that anyone can be blamed for that. This is something that frankly, if you know in the morning that you are going to have informal guests that night AND you have the ingredients at hand, you’ve got a great dessert. But be warned: it needs at least 3 hours of time in the fridge to set up properly.

Here is what you will need, besides a pie plate and two ripe bananas (but not mushy – you should be able to smell the banana scent but they will not have reached the ‘OMG – these are only good for banana bread’ stage).
Some sort of pie crust – enough for the bottom of a 9-10″ pie pan. It doesn’t matter if it’s a refrigerated one, graham cracker, something you make yourself or whatever. If it needs baking, bake according to a ‘not filled’ pie for that type of crust and let cool completely.

White Layer: Beat together the following
1, 8 ounce package of some sort of cream cheese – this works equally well with regular ‘high test’ cream cheese, the reduced-fat stuff, the non-dairy tofu-based stuff.
1 tsp. of some sort of flavoring (I used almond for this but vanilla or banana will do – you can even go ‘high society’ and use some sort of fruit-based liquor)
1 cup of confectioner’s sugar

Set that aside – you can put that in the fridge and it won’t harden up.

Chocolate Layer: Stir together in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan
2 packages (the small ones) of ‘cook and serve’ pudding mix. I used dark chocolate, but literally any sort of ‘cook and serve’ pudding will work for this.
1 1/2 cups of milk (again, any sort of milk will do – I’ve even done this with almond milk)
Bring this slowly to a boil, over medium heat, stirring constantly. I use a whisk but a big metal spoon will work also. Once this comes to a boil (and it will have thickened up considerably already), keep stirring until it gets very very thick and you can really feel the resistance against the spoon (that should be about 5 min. but no more – you don’t want this to burn on the bottom of the pan). Take off the heat and set this aside to cool off. You want this to be basically room temperature when you pour it into the shell.

Once everything is cooled, take your cream cheese layer and pour that into the bottom of the pie crust. Then slice the bananas and lay them out, as you see here in the photo, starting at the edge and working your way into the center until the entire surface is covered in sliced bananas. If you want, you can sprinkle cinnamon on top of the bananas and this really perks up the flavor tremendously.

Then, take your chocolate layer and pour that on top. You can also add other dainties on top, such as chocolate mini-chips or toasted coconut. The pudding will support them. The pie will look something like this photo. At this point, put the pie into the coldest part of your fridge and leave it for at least three hours before serving.

Prepare for people to get rude and lick the plates.

Additional notes:
Here’s a great GF crust for this: 2 cups of almond flour, 2 Tablespoons of butter or solid coconut oil, 1/4 cup of cocoa, and one egg. This will have the qualities almost like a wet graham cracker crust. Press this into the pie plate and bake at 350 for 12-15 min. and cool.

Please note: You can also make this into a frozen pie. Here is a photograph of what this pie looks like once it’s frozen. As you can see, the texture is completely different, at least in the chocolate layer. The white layer does not freeze hard – so it’s more ice cream in texture while the chocolate part has definite crystals. I think it changes the dessert into something completely different and actually quite delightful – reminds me of ‘fudgesickles’ (if you are old enough to remember those) in a pie crust, actually.