Banana Meringue Pie

These simple tarts have a sweet banana and almond filling, with a crispy yet marshmallow-y meringue topping . The inspiration for the recipe came from an old Good Housekeeping recipe for pineapple meringue pie. However I have a fond dislike of pineapples (its the texture!), plus at the time of dreaming up recipe I had a surplus of bananas (remind me to look next time on the market how many there in those £1 bowls!) and with a little tweaking came up with this recipe!

The tarts are also are my second video recipe for the Russell Hobbs Blogger vs Fans challenge! This week I got to play with the Allure hand mixer, which is really good. I’ve never had a ‘handheld’ mixer before so its rather nice to finally own one, even better in that its an excellent, well designed product. The main thing I love is the little LCD panel which tells me what speed I am at, and how long its been on for! If you like my recipe, please pretty please come over to Facebook and click on the ‘like’ underneath my video!


Being filmed cooking is one of the hardest challenges I have done! I am not naturally organised and when I cook it normally involves finding random ingredients and the hope it will produce something edible. Also me and meringue are not best of friends, being a relative novice but if I can manage it, I am quite sure it will be a breeze for you!

There are a few scenes not shown on the video – I never normally have a problem with eggs breaking but these were evil – I broke three and had to wash up the bowls halfway through! It did remind me of a less than fun time when I was in a supermarket buying eggs – I was carefully checking that none of them were cracked etc, picked one up and it broke in my hand! Truly nasty and I had to rather embarrassingly ask for some paper towels, I couldn’t wait to get home and wash my hands!

Somehow though it all came together, and the recipe whilst is unusual, it actually tastes really good! I originally thought these would serve 2 but the tarts were actually quite big so probably best to share between 4 of you!

Serves 2-4

Ingredients

2 x 10x10 dessert pastry squares
Egg spray or 1 small beaten egg
1 large whole egg, separated
2 bananas
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp water
1 tbsp ground almonds

Spray the pastry squares with egg wash or beaten egg, score a line about 1cm in from the edge and make a few shallow knife dents, bake for 6 minutes at 180 fan/ 200, allow to cool slightly

Heat a small pan. Blend the cornflour and water, add to pan and bring to boil, when its started to thicken – it won’t take very long – stir in the mashed banana and almonds, beat for a minute and add the egg yolk, stir over a moderate heat for a further minute and then turn off the heat – it should be thick and creamy

Whisk the egg white in a clean bowl for no less than 5 minutes, slowly adding the sugar after it has started to whiten, beat in until the meringue is all glossy and white,holding a soft peak. Carefully spoon into a piping bag with a large star nozzle

Place the banana mixture in the centre of the tarts, pipe over the meringue and bake for 16 minutes or until crisp and cooked through. Reduce the heat if browning too much. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool down completely.

Best eaten on day of making. It still tastes great the next day but visually not so good...!