DULCE de LECHE BANANA CREAM PIE

For one of our beachy dinners for the Deaf Club (a group of over 20 folks) I made a version of Food Network's Marcela Valladolid's Dulce de Leche Banana Cream Pie.  I made a few alterations...and boy was it good!  If you want to take a yummy dessert to a pot luck or serve something slightly different for dessert, this is a great one to try.  I'm recording my larger recipe...because one little pie wouldn't have done the trick.

We didn't quite finish it Wednesday night, so we had coffee and pie after the beach on Thursday.  Even better the next day :-)

DULCE de LECHE BANANA CREAM PIE
Adapted from Marcela Valladolid's recipe


Ingredients:

2 7-ounce packages Marias Cookies (a Mexican cookie, tastes a lot like animal crackers in my opinion) - available in the cookie aisle of most grocery stores - with the Hispanic cookie selection
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted (or if you use salted butter, don't add the salt above)

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 cans dulce de leche (used Nestle's La Lechera Dulce de Leche)
6 medium bananas, sliced

Method:

For the crust: 
Place the Maria cookies in the bowl of your food processor and process until coarsely ground. 

Add the salt and pulse until everything is finely ground. 
Add melted butter and pulse until combined. 

When pressing with fingers, crumbs will hold together when proper texture. 

Transfer the crust mixture into a 9x13 glass dish (I used a Pyrex dish).  Spread the crumbs evenly and use the bottom of a measuring cup to press and form the crust evenly across the bottom and up the sides of the pan.  Refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes to solidify the butter.

For the cream filling: 
In the bowl of a stand mixer with the beater attachment, whip the cream cheese and butter at medium speed until fluffy with minimal lumps.  Add the powdered sugar and cinnamon, whipping just until combined.  Replace the beater with the whip attachment and pour the whipping cream and whip to soft peaks.  It goes pretty fast so be careful - I went a little further than I should have and nearly had stiff peaks.

To assemble the pie:
Spread the dulce de leche on top of the chilled crust.  I put a lot in the crust and spread with an offset spatula.  Careful not to dislodge crumbs from the crust.  It smoothed on surprisingly easily.  I used about 1 1/2 cans of Dulce de Leche. 

Top generously with sliced bananas, forming 2 layers if necessary.  I used an overlapping line method to insure every bite had banana. 

Pour the whipped cream filling on top and spread evenly to completely cover the banana layer.  I actually covered the edge of the crust too. 

Refrigerate and chill until set - about 2 hours.

I put the remaining Dulce de Leche in a quart sized freezer Ziploc bag and piped drops onto the top of the pie. 

Cut into squares with a sharp knife, wiping the knife between slices.  When serving, I stuck a whole Maria cookie into the top of each dollop of Dulce de Leche.

I must say, it got rave reviews.  Deliciosa!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

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