Tasty Tuesday: Cream Pies

My husband loves banana cream pie. Eating it reminds him of his dad. His dad was apparently a wonderful cook and was famous for his banana cream pies. The last time my husband visited his dad they made a pie. See picture below.
This is the recipe his dad used for cream pies. It is from Cheri Sicard and was on gardenguides.com in 2003.

The Basic Cream Pie Recipe

3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 C whole milk
2 eggs or 3 egg yolks
1 T butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 baked and cooled 9 inch pie shell
Whipped cream to top pie

In a medium saucepan, mix sugar, flour, and salt. Stir in 1 cup milk, mix until smooth, and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Continue to stir until smooth and thickened, about 2 minutes, then remove from heat.

Beat the eggs or egg yolks with the remaining cup of milk. Temper the egg mixture with a small amount of the slightly cooled milk mixture then blend this into the larger saucepan with the cooling milk mixture.

Return saucepan to the heat and bring to a boil again, stirring constantly, lower heat and simmer until mixture thickens a bit more, about 1 minute.

Remove from the heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Cool slightly and pour into baked pie shell.

Cool completely then cover top of pie with sweetened whipped cream or whipped topping.

Below are some cream pie variations. Pictured below is the Chocolate Banana Cream Pie I made.
Cream Pie Variations

Chocolate Cream Pie
Make basic filling and add ½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips to hot filling in pan. Stir until chocolate melts completely.

Banana Cream Pie
Make basic filling, cool. Slice 2 bananas into bottom of pie shell. Pour cooled basic filling (or chocolate filling) on top.

Coconut Cream Pie
Stir 1 cup flaked coconut into basic filling just before pouring into the pie shell. Sprinkle toasted coconut on top of the whipped cream for a beautiful and tasty presentation.

Butterscotch Cream Pie
Substitute ¾ cup firmly pack brown sugar instead of white sugar in basic filling recipe, and increase the butter to 3 tablespoons. Cook in the same manner as the basic filling.

Eggnog Cream Pie
Stir in ¼ tsp. nutmeg into the basic mixture. Sprinkle a small amount of nutmeg on the whipped cream.