As a child growing up in Argentina, I used to delight on the different types of pies that my American grandmother would bake. For us, "apple pie" was not "tarta de manzanas" but "apo pie" and chocolate pie could never be "tarta de chocolate". Pies and America have always been associated in my mind, and I've indeed found that Americans love pies of all kinds. I think it's fair to say that along with ice cream (with which it's often served), pie is the American dessert par excellence.

Americans also love bananas, and no one loves them more than my husband so I decided to make a banana cream pie. Along the way, I found that most cream pies are made with one basic recipe to which the flavoring (be it chocolate, banana, coconut or other) its added. I also found that making pies is pretty easy, specially if you buy a pre-baked or frozen shell, as I did in this case. The result was very good, and I'll certainly bake this again.

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Banana Cream Pie

Ingredients

A baked pie shell

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2 cups milk

3 egg yolks

2 tbsp. butter

2 tsp. vanilla

2 ripe bananas

Instructions

In a heavy pot combine sugar, flour and salt. Place over very low heat and add milk. Cook, stirring, for about 10 minutes or until the mixture thickens.

In a large bowl, lightly beat egg yolks. Add half of the sugar mixture and mix well. Add the egg mixture to the cooking pot. Cook until it thickens.

Remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. Let cool slightly.

Slice bananas and place slices on pie shell. Cover with custard. Let cool.

Serve with whipped cream or ice cream.

Adapted from Joy of Cooking