Here’s another Fair recipe from 2008.  I placed second in the Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie contest with this one–you better believe I have a better idea for this year!

Stuffed Crust Coco-Banana Cream Pie

For the brickle filling and crust:
½ cup sugar
5 tablespoons butter
½ cup toasted finely chopped macadamia nuts
1-15 oz  package Pillsbury Refrigerated Pie crust

Line baking sheet with aluminum foil.
In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients.  Place over medium high heat and cook, stirring constantly until the bubbling mixture turns golden brown, about 5 minutes.  Pour onto prepared sheet and spread out thinly.  Allow to cool completely.  When cool, break into large pieces and chop coarsely in food processor.  Purchased macadamia nut brittle (brickle) may be substituted for convenience.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Place one Pillsbury Refrigerate Pie Crust into a 9” pie plate.  Pour 1 1/3 cup processed brickle crumbs into the prepared crust.  Press a layer of crumbs into sides of crust, leaving about ½ inch from the edge of the pie plate crumb free.  Spread out remaining brickle to cover the bottom of the pie crust.

Unroll second crust; place on top of filled crust and pat together gently. Seal edges of crusts together and flute. Fit a second empty pie plate on top of the filled crust and put in oven.

Bake filled crust 10 minutes. Carefully remove top pie plate and prick crust sides and bottom every inch with fork, piercing only the top crust.  Bake again uncovered about 15-18 minutes longer or until entire crust is light golden brown. Cover edge with aluminum foil if necessary while baking.  Cool completely on a wire rack before filling.

For the filling:

2 ½ cups heavy cream, divided
½ cup half and half
1 ½ cup coconut milk
¼ teaspoon coconut extract (optional)
1/3 cup cornstarch
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs plus one egg yolk, lightly beaten
1 whole vanilla bean or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
2 large bananas, thinly sliced (1/8th inch approximately)
¾ cup sweetened flaked coconut, toasted, divided
2-3 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar, to taste

In a large microwave safe bowl, whisk together 1 cup heavy cream, half and half, coconut milk, coconut extract and cornstarch.  Stir in sugar, eggs, vanilla bean or extract and salt.  Do not crush or scrape the vanilla bean.

In the microwave on 100% power, cook custard mixture for 11-13 minutes, depending on the strength of your microwave, pausing the cooking process to stir the custard at the end of each minute.  At minute 8, remove the vanilla bean and scrape it lightly once if using.  Continue cooking custard until thickened.  Pausing to stir custard each minute is crucial as microwave power varies widely.

Remove one cup hot custard and spread it on the bottom of the cooled pie shell.  Cover the custard with a layer of bananas.  Spread one more cup of custard on top of the layer of bananas.  Arrange another layer of bananas on top of custard.   Mix ½ cup toasted coconut with remaining custard and spread on top of bananas, reserving the remaining ¼ cup of coconut for the topping.

Cover pie with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or until ready to use.

Before serving, whip the remaining heavy cream with desired amount of confectioner’s sugar and spread over pie, using a pastry bag for decorative accents if desired.  Sprinkle remaining ¼ cup of toasted coconut over whipped cream and serve.  Purchased whipped cream may be substituted for convenience.  Serves 8.  Enjoy!