Salted Caramel Banana Cream Pie
Homemade custard, fresh bananas, and rich salted caramel in a buttery pie crust. The ultimate banana cream pie!
It's all about homemade pies on Thanksgiving. This is a made-from-scratch banana cream pie with salted caramel drizzle. It is rich and creamy with a touch of sweet caramel.
We are 4 days away from the big Thanksgiving day and I am so looking forward to this week! My entire family and also great friends from our days in Texas are coming into town so it is going to be non-stop social events. Of course, I need to carve out some baking time and this pie is making its way to our Thanksgiving table.
This Salted Caramel Banana Cream Pie is ridiculously good. It starts off with an All Butter Flaky Pie Crust (recipe HERE) topped with a vanilla pastry cream made from scratch, fresh bananas, handcrafted salted caramel (feel free to substitute it straight from the jar), and sweet whipped cream.
The key to making this Salted Caramel Banana Cream Pie is the homemade pastry cream. It's such a simple base for desserts but so reminiscent of times when everything was slowly cooked and handmade. I can't leave this stuff alone! You can flavor it with either pure vanilla extract or a vanilla bean. The vanilla bean just takes it up a notch.
The salted caramel can be made from scratch or you can even grab a jar of high-quality caramel from the store to save some time. Add a little sprinkle of sea salt flakes to the caramel and you are all set!
These Pyrex scalloped pie plates are perfect for baking pies and are only around $8. My favorite wooden spoon for making custard can be found here.
Click the links below for more pie recipes:
Caramel Apple Pie
White Chocolate Macadamia Chocolate Ganache Pie
Double Chocolate Marble Pie
The BEST Pumpkin Pie
Old-Fashioned Pecan Pie
Sweet Cherry Pie
Traditional Perfect Pumpkin Pie
Caramel Banana Cream Pie
I hope you all love this Salted Caramel Banana Cream Pie as much as we do! I would love to hear what you are doing for Thanksgiving and what you will be serving! I have one more recipe to share with you tomorrow which has been a staple in our home for the last 15 years.
Happy Baking! xo
Talia
Hi Melissa,
Can you tell me if this pie can be made gluten free?
It’s essentially the pie crust flour that would be altered.
Many thanks!
Modern Honey
That's a great question! I haven't tried to make it gluten-free. I am not sure how the crust will hold up with gluten-free flour. It may need more liquid so it may be an experiment. 🙂 Good luck!
Lucinda
I made this last year and loved it! This year I noticed the 2 tablespoons of flour is listed in the ingredients of the pastry cream, but isn’t explained in the instruction portion. Are those supposed to be added at the same time as the corn starch? Thanks so much!
Talia
OMG. Can’t even. Talk about heaven on a plate, this pie is ABSOLUTELY delicious. I couldn’t fault it if I tried....
The first time around I didn’t cook the sugar for the caramel on high enough heat and it just crystallised without caramelising like the lady mentions above. I also omitted the flour in the pie cream, I think it’s an error.
CANNOT RECOMMEND HIGH ENOUGH!!!
Leah
Hi there, I just wanted to leave a comment letting you know my experience with your recipe, it tasted great but was a complete disaster. I followed the recipe to a t (and I'm not just saying that but changed or left ingredients out, no, I legit followed it). My husband requested I make a salted caramel banana cream pie for thanksgiving, so I found your recipe and set to work. The pastry cream came out great. Everything was going great until I tried making the caramel sauce. It was a complete disaster and the sugar crystallized, never turned brown. I tried two batches and then just gave up and ran to the store to use store bought stuff. The pie got made and then when we cut into it a few hours later - after Thanksgiving, oh my goodness, it was a soupy mess. We tried putting it back in the fridge, but again it came out a soupy mess. It tasted good, but the pastry cream had become super liquidy. After the fact I came back to your site to check the recipe (I seriously must have read over each step 100 times lol) and sure enough, I followed ever step as was written. So who knows. I did notice you didn't have a picture of a piece of the pie out of the crust, so I'm wondering if that has happened to you too.
Jen
The reason for a pastry cream turning runny is that it probably didn't quite get cooked long enough. There are enzymes in the egg yolks that will break down the starches as the filling sits, turning it soupy. The custard needs to reach a temperature of at least 180 degrees for these enzymes to become inactivated.
The sugar probably crystallized from stirring it while it came to a boil. The sugar should be dissolved in warm water over low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, rinse down any sugar crystals clinging to the inside of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in warm water, then turn up the heat to medium and bring to a boil without stirring - just swirl the pan gently as needed when the sugar begins to caramelize (to help it color evenly).