- 8
- 30 mins
- 50 mins
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs from 9 (4 3/4 – by 2 1/4-inch) crackers
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon curry powder (preferably Madras)
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 teaspoon finely grated fresh lemon zest
- 1 cup chilled heavy cream
- 4 teaspoons dark rum
- 4 firm-ripe bananas
Preparation
Step 1
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F.
Stir together crumbs, butter, curry powder, cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons brown sugar in a bowl with a fork until combined well. Reserve 1 tablespoon crumb mixture for garnish and press remaining crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and up side of pie plate. Bake crust 10 minutes, then cool completely in pie plate on a rack, about 20 minutes.
Beat together cream cheese, zest, and remaining 6 tablespoons brown sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until light and fluffy, about 1 minute.
Beat cream with rum in another bowl with cleaned beaters at medium speed until it holds soft peaks. Gently stir one third of whipped cream into cream cheese mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining whipped cream gently but thoroughly.
A note here from us: We found that adding that initial one third of the whipped cream didn’t make the mixture as light as anticipated. With our first pie, the cream cheese and initial one third whipped mix still tended to be heavy when folding in the rest of the whipped and it just wanted to stay on the bottom. When folding, make sure it’s all integrating. Fold firmly and make sure to pick up from the bottom of the bowl, but don’t over fold.
Thinly slice bananas and arrange evenly over bottom of crust. Spread all of cream filling over bananas, then sprinkle reserved crumb mixture over top. Chill pie, loosely covered, at least 1 hour.
Notes:
The original recipe suggests chilling the pie for only about 20 minutes, but we realized this wouldn’t be enough time. We started by gradually checking on the pie by gently touching the creamy top layer through the plastic wrap cover. Once it was completely set, as in it didn’t give at all when barely touching it, we pulled it out and sliced.
I made a second pie for work and the next day when I brought it in, it still tasted great, so this is one you can make ahead. I wouldn’t make it more than one day ahead if serving guests, though, since the bananas, as they tend to do, will get more and more sweet and start to go fast.
Also? We used low-fat graham crackers for the crust! A (little) nod to health and all. It went great with all that creamy, fluffy filling. (Nod)