"Keep calm and carry on" banana pie

How to ruin a cake, by L’Arc Bakery.

Spain. 45ºC.

The chocolate was melting. The pastry cream was liquid. The whipped cream was oh-not-so-whipped. The pastry crust was sweating butter like there’s no tomorrow.

Long story short, everything was melting. Everything, myself included.

But I said to myself: Keep calm and carry on! And that’s why I made this cake, because this sentence that can be found in every internet meme has a special meaning for us cielers thanks to our almighty leader. Tetsu’s british obsession has always been obvious but his “Keep calm and carry on” bass is a confirmation.

And today is our beloved leader’s birthday! He’s 20 again :DDDD (or so he says), so let’s celebrate with this banana pie!

Me, I’m going to celebrate with this cocktail that me and my friends invented when we were in Paris for the World Tour concert. It’s called “Tetsuya”: beer and cassis soda, and it’s… pink! So good. Happy bass-day!!

INGREDIENTS:

For the shortbread crust:

- 130 gr. (1 cup) flour

- 35 gr. (1/3 cup) powdered o sugar

- 1/8 teaspoon salt

- 113 gr. (1/2 cup) butter

For the pastry cream:

- 300 ml. (1 1/4 cups) milk

- ½ vanilla bean, or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 3 eggyolks

- 50 gr. (1/4 cup) white sugar

- 2 tablespoons white flour

- 2 tablespoons corn flour

- 2-3 large bananas

- Pink food coloring

For the whipped Cream:

- 240 ml (1 cup) heavy whipping cream (35-40% fat)

- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

For the chocolate decorations:

- 100 gr. (3,5 ounces) of dark chocolate

- 150 gr. (5,25 ounces) of white chocolate

- Pink food coloring

STEP 1: Shortbread crust.

HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. Shortbread crust, what have I ever done to you? The shortbread for this pie was a nightmare! I tried three different doughs to get a decent shortbread crust! Long story short, the recipe I used is not the same as the one I’m writing here. I’m sure it would have turned out just fine without so much heat, but I don’t want you to risk the whole recipe, so use this one instead, I know for sure it works.

Butter an 20-23 cm (8-9 inch) tart pan with a removable bottom.

In a bowl, place the flour, sugar, and salt and whisk together until combined.

Add the butter (this time we don’t need room temperature butter, it’s better if it’s cold and cut into pieces) and beat until the pastry starts to come together and form clumps. 

Evenly press the pastry onto the bottom and up the sides of the tart pan. Pierce the bottom of the crust with a fork, like in the picture. This step is very important because it will prevent the pastry crust from puffing up while it bakes. Cover and place the pastry crust in the freezer for 15 minutes to chill. Also important! This will prevent the crust from shrinking while it bakes.

Preheat the oven to 220ºC (425º F). Place the tart pan on a baking sheet and bake until the crust is golden brown, 13 -15 minutes. I put the rack in the center of the oven and the crust was perfectly baked, but every oven is different so check it often. 

Remove the crust from the oven and let it cool completely before filling it with the rest of the ingredients.



STEP 2: Pastry Cream.

In a bowl, mix the sugar and the egg yolks together. Whisk the flour and corn flour together in another bowl and then add it slowly to the egg mixture, mixing constantly.

It’s time to add the vanilla. With a knife, slice the vanilla bean down the middle, like in the picture. If you are not using a vanilla bean but a little bit of liquid vanilla extract, don’t add it now, it’s better to add it when the pastry cream is almost done.

In a saucepan, heat the milk and the vanilla bean together (if you are using liquid vanilla extract just boil the milk alone) just until the milk starts to foam up a little, it doesn’t have to boil. Remove it from the heat and add it very slowly to the egg mixture, whisking constantly (very important!) to prevent it from curdling. You can always strain it if yours has lumps.
Remove the vanilla bean and scrape out seeds with a knife. Add these seeds to the egg mixture, this will give a richer flavor to the pastry.

Pour the mixture into a saucepan and cook over medium heat until boiling, whisking constantly (very important! Everything is very important in this recipe .__.) When it boils, whisk mixture constantly for another 30-60 seconds until it just becomes thick. Look at the thickness in the picture. I like the pastry cream thick and creamy at the same time, it will get thicker when it cools though.

Remove it from the heat. If you are using vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean, stir it in now!
Pour the mixture into a bowl and cover it with plastic wrap to prevent a crust from forming. Put it in the fridge until it’s time to assemble the pie. You will need to whisk it a little bit before using it to fill the shortbread crust, to get rid of any lumps that may have formed J



STEP 3: Whipped cream.

To whipe the cream we need two follow two basic rules:

-The cream has to be heavy, otherwise it will not whip. The fat helps the cream to be whiped, so it needs to contain the right percentage of fat, around 35 to 40%.

-Everything has to be cold. The colder the cream is to start, and the colder it stays as you whip it, the easier and better it whips. The cream shouldn’t be room temperature, get if from the fridge just before using it. Put your mixing bowl in the freezer too, for about 15 minutes.
In the cold bowl, beat the whipping cream. You can use an electric hand mixer for this task, the cream will be whipped faster.

When the cream is about half whipped, add the powdered sugar and continue to whip just until stiff peaks form. If you add the sugar at the beginning it will get a lower volume.

Now it’s the time to dye the whipped cream with pink food coloring. I use gel food coloring, but you can use others: powdered, paste, etc. If you don’t want to use artificial coloring you can use a little bit of beet juice, a small amount of juice gives color without much flavour, but you won’t get a really bright pink color L Anyway, natural food coloring is healthier so it’s up to you ;) Once you get a bright pink tone, cover the bowl and put the whipped cream in the fridge until being used.



STEP 4: Chocolate decorations.

This is the tricky part of the recipe. Again, you need a little bit of art skills and lots of patience, because we are going to draw a chocolate bass! And lots and lots of letters.

First of all, we are going to use several piping bags: One for the white chocolate, one for the pink chocolate and two for the dark chocolate. I recommend two different piping bags for the dark chocolate because it’s easier to work with a smaller tip for outlining and a bigger one for filling, but it’s ok if you use just one.

Let's begin with the text. In this case, the typography is really important because the “Keep calm and carry on” sign it’s pure typography. I draw the letters in a baking parchment sheet with a template, hereyou can download it, buuuuut… when I moved the letters to the pie, some of them kind of… melted, because of the heat of the room and the heat of my hands (Did I mention the heat??). I had to draw four or five letters directly over the whipped cream. If you are good at drawing, this is the better choice, but if you are not confident try the first option.

For the bass, here is the template. I draw the pink part first, then the dark chocolate part and I save the white details for last. I recommend to draw at least one extra bass, just in case the first one won’t make it XD. I outlined the bass once I placed it on the pie, but it’s optional. Let the chocolate decorations to dry completely.

STEP 5: Assembling the pie!

Spread the pastry cream evenly over the shortbread crust. Then cut the bananas in slices and spread them over the pastry.

Spread the whipped cream over the bananas. Make sure to cover all the cut bananas with some of the cream, if you do not cover them completely, they will start to brown L

Carefully move all the letters and the chocolate bass and place them over the pink whipped cream. Try not to touch the chocolate with your hands, I used a spatula ;)

 And that’s it! Happy bass day to our beloved leader! :D