Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Cafe--Banana Cream Pie

I'm pretty challenged technologically and writing this blog is a real test at times.  Well, not the writing part, but everything else about it--formatting a blog, managing it, tweaking settings, just everything about it.  I thought I had set everything up so that readers could comment, and I just thought that nobody wanted to comment.  (And that made me kinda sad.)

But apparently that was not the case. Evidently, I just hadn't set things up properly, I made some kind of adjustment, and voila, comments started appearing.  One of those comments, from Anndee, was a request for more Magic Mix recipes.   I was so excited to have a comment, that even though I told Anndee it would be a couple of weeks, I just had to get right on it.

Up for your consideration today is Banana Cream Pie.  And while I did happen to use fresh bananas for this, every other ingredient is food storage, and most of it is long-term food storage.  (If we were in a grid-down situation, I would have used some freeze-dried bananas.)  And it was my first time ever making a banana cream pie.  And--get this--the Queen of the Picky Eaters proclaimed it really good.  I thought it was pretty good too, for being banana cream pie.  I'm just not a huge fan of cream pies in general, but if we throw some serious chocolate in, I'm thinking I could be persuaded.

When I went looking for Magic Mix recipes, one of the first I came across was actually for Banana Cream Pie, but I passed over it because it called for Nilla Wafers.  Those things just aren't real food.  I've certainly never purchased them, and I'm sure I haven't eaten them since the age of five or so.  They were kinda a deal-breaker for me.  But then I got to thinking that there would probably be a recipe for homemade Nilla Wafers, and then maybe making a banana cream pie wouldn't be so bad.

And there were quite a few recipes for Nilla Wafer knock-offs.  I settled on a recipe that wasn't too fussy or calling for weird stuff that I wouldn't be storing anyway, one that could definitely be made from typical food storage items.

Homemade Nilla Wafers
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar together.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Combine dry ingredients separately (and yes, that is baking powder and not baking soda), and then add to creamed ingredients and mix well.  If you want true Nilla Wafer size cookies, roll about a teaspoon (like measuring spoon teaspoon size) of dough into a ball and flatten it with your fingers.  The cookies will spread quite a bit, so place them about two inches apart on the cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.  Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to a cooling rack.

(Cookie evaluation:  These are kinda plain little cookies--no chips, no nuts, no spices or frosting.  But apparently they were sufficiently tasty.  At any rate, they're way better than I remember those Nilla Wafer-hockey pucks tasting.  I forgot to set any aside for garnishing the top of the pie.  Oops.)


Banana Cream Pie
1 1/2 cups crushed Nilla Wafers
3 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup Magic Mix

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups water 

4 bananas, sliced

Combine the crushed cookies and butter and press into a 9-inch pie pan.  Bake at 350 for 5 minutes.  Set pie crust aside.

Combine Magic Mix and sugar in a small saucepan.  Stir in water, and over medium heat, continue stirring until mixture bubbles and thickens into pudding.  Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.  Let cool 15 minutes.

Place sliced bananas on pie crust.  Pour pudding over the bananas.  Top with Nilla Wafers.  Chill and serve.

For Chocolate Banana Cream Pie, add 2-3 tablespoons of cocoa powder or 1/2 cup chocolate chips to the pudding mix when you combine the Magic Mix and sugar.

Related posts on Magic Mix:
Magic Mix
Cream Soups and Recipe Replacements
Magic Mix Gravy 
26 april 2019