Going bananas

My children can be picky eaters.  (I may have mentioned this before...)  Not all the time, but often enough.  Some of that is just because they're kids, of course.  =)  Gillian is actually a lot better than Brianna most of the time.  If she says she doesn't like something, it's usually because she really doesn't like it.  With Brianna, it's all about the power struggle.  It can be particularly infuriating when she claims to dislike something that I know darn well she ate with no problem the week before.  I even get mixed responses to dessert.  They both eat pretty much anything chocolate.  But they often disagree on other options.  For instance, Brianna claims to dislike raisins in all baked goods.  Gillian, on the other hand, sits there and picks the raisins out so she can eat them first.  There are a few other things like that.  But another thing that they agree on is a love of pudding.  (Well, except maybe rice pudding.)

For Tuesdays with Dorie, the month of April will be filled with lots of chocolate, so I know most of the recipes should go over well.  But for this week, we start off with something I wasn't too sure about--Banana Cream Pie.  It was chosen by Amy of Sing for Your Supper.  I didn't mention it above, but I'm pretty sure the girls get some of their picky tendencies from me.  =)  I don't like banana cream pie.  Honestly, I don't really like most things banana, unless I'm in just the right mood.  But I already felt really bad about missing last week, and didn't want to skip another recipe.  What to do?  

First, I decided to only make half the recipe.  And then I decided to skip the pie crust and just make small parfaits.  I asked Brianna if she liked banana pudding.  I wasn't sure if she'd had it, but it turns out they made it at daycare at some point.  She was quick to tell me, though, that she was sure I could make one that was much better.  Wow.  Considering the above-mentioned power struggles that we've been dealing with, that was quite the compliment! =)  She then told me how I need to make them--put pudding in the bottom of the bowl, put sliced bananas around the sides, and put whipped cream in the middle.  So that's what we did.

The pastry cream came together pretty easily.  Of course, I've had a few other opportunities to make pastry cream from Dorie's recipes, so I knew what to expect.  The brown sugar and vanilla added a nice caramel character, and the spices were a good addition as well.  After chilling, the cream was quite thick, but I got to vent some of my frustrations by whisking it until it loosened up. =)  For the whipped cream, I just added a bit of sugar (to taste) to some heavy cream, and skipped the sour cream.  I like the tang that sour cream adds, but I was afraid my young pudding eaters wouldn't care for it.  

The verdict?  This pretty much never happens, but Brianna and Gillian ate all of this week's TWD recipe by themselves (over the course of two days).  Jamie got to finish off a bit of pastry cream left in the bowl, but that was it.  The first day, I made them both dishes with all three elements--pastry cream, bananas, and whipped cream.  Brianna ate all of hers--amazing. =)  Gillian tasted hers, made me take the bananas out (even though she usually likes them), and polished off the rest.  I was pleasantly surprised--I expected some sort of complaint about the spices, but didn't get one.  For day two, Brianna requested that I leave the whipped cream off of hers.  (I was actually kind of surprised she ate it the first day.)  And I left the bananas out of Gillian's.  Again, gone.  All in all, a very good result.  

For the full recipe, be sure to head over to Amy's blog.  And I'm sure the other TWD bakers have come up with some creative takes on this week's recipe, so check the blogroll as well.