Elevate Banana Cream Pie With One Decadent Topping Swap

A classic banana cream pie is a step up from the old school banana pudding, swapping Nilla wafers for a buttery flakey pie crust and banana pudding for scratch-made vanilla custard layered with banana slices. You can still elevate a banana cream pie by swapping the traditional whipped cream topping for meringue.

Whipped cream is a simple blend of heavy whipping cream and sugar, which brings a dairy richness to pair with the sliced bananas and vanilla custard. Meringue swaps the dairy for egg whites, making for a much lighter, airier topping. Plus, since the vanilla custard calls for egg yolks only, the separated egg whites are already waiting to be whipped into a meringue. Not only is meringue a lighter topping to offset the heavy richness of the custard, but a quick stint in the oven will harden and char it for a textural contrast and a more elegant presentation.

While whipped cream is a topping you can dollop on top of refrigerated custard, meringue does require the extra step of baking the pie again to set it. That said, you can also use a culinary blow torch, like this one by Sondiko, to toast the stiff meringue peaks.

Just as we have tried various homemade whipped cream techniques, we also have plenty of methods of making the meringue to add to the banana cream pie base. Whipping meringue is more finicky than whipping cream, and both under-whipping and over-whipping the egg whites have catastrophic effects on texture. Since the goal is to get to the stiff peak stage, you'll have to watch your meringue carefully for the visual cues that signal it's time to stop beating. It'll take an electric hand mixer around four minutes to get those stiff fluffy peaks. Once you flip over the mixing whisk and observe the egg whites still standing stiff you'll know it's done.

Egg whites and sugar are the main two ingredients of meringue, but cream of tartar is a crucial third ingredient needed to stabilize the meringue. So, excluding it would be a costly mistake to your meringue. Another important tip is to use fresh eggs and to bring the egg whites to room temperature before whipping them.

You can use a piping bag like we use in our recipe for lemon meringue pie to dole out meringue tear drops over the custard, interspersed with fresh slices of banana. For added effect, sprinkle sanding sugar over both the banana slices and meringue peaks before torching them. The sugar will instill golden coloring to the meringue while also bruléeing the bananas.