I came up with this recipe because I was craving something banana pudding/banana cream pie-esque, but with super flaky, laminated pastry, like puff pastry or a croissant. The thought of crispy dough, custard, and cooked down bananas just sounded really good to me in the moment, so I figured, why not make that a reality? I love making phyllo from scratch. And it comes together a lot faster than puff pastry. So for this recipe, I opted to use homemade phyllo. The advantages to using phyllo to puff pastry is that it takes way less time to make from scratch, it bakes a lot faster, and it is a lot less temperamental. With puff pastry, because of how much cold butter goes into that kind of dough, you need to handle it very delicately. The heat from your hands could potentially ruin your layers. With phyllo, being just sheets of dough with butter/oil brushed between them, you can handle that a lot more liberally, with the only concern being you accidentally tear a phyllo sheet, which honestly results in crispier bits anyways, so it’s kind of a win-win. I dubbed this dessert a pita, because that is a Montenegrin/Albanian term of a pie of sorts that is made with phyllo. I have heard it used to describe a lot of different pastries, actually, include Montenegrin krempita and Greek spanakopita to name a few.

For the filling, I went with a banana pastry cream, similar to a banana pudding. I did make my banana pudding on the thicker side, using cornstarch and cream cheese to stabilize it, just because it was being baked, and the worst thing that can happen to a baked filling is that it explodes out of whatever pastry or casing you enrobe it in. I love using Korean banana milk in my banana pudding/custard mixture, so I went with that in this recipe too. But you can always just use regular milk if you can’t find it. I personally like the banana milk, because it has that artificial banana Laffy Taffy-like flavor to it, but that is also not for everyone, so just know that when you decide which milk option to land on. To add more natural banana flavor into this pastry, I used ripe bananas in the filling(which did kill the color of it, hence why I spared your eyes and didn’t bother with a cross section pic), and I also studded the pastry cream with some flambeed bananas, because I just wanted to make sure that there was a lot of banana-y flavor going on in there. To add texture, I baked walnuts and white chocolate into the top of the pita, just so there’s more crunch and some caramel-y notes running through the pastry as well, just to give contrast to the thin, flaky phyllo being used in this.

For the pastry cream:
4oz banana milk
4oz cream cheese
2 really ripe bananas, peeled
1/4 cup granulated sugar
4 egg yolks
3 tbsp cornstarch
a pinch of salt
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a blender, puree all of the ingredients, sans the butter and vanilla, until smooth. Pass through a sieve into a pot and whisk on medium heat until everything has thickened enough to cling to the sides of your whisk. Take off heat and whisk in the butter and vanilla until everything is mixed together. Pass the mixture through a sieve again to remove any lumps, and refrigerate the cream in a bowl, with plastic wrap pressed against the surface of it to prevent any air from getting onto it.

For the bananas foster:
1 unripe banana, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch disks
1 tbsp unsalted butter, browned
2 tbsp rum
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
a pinch of salt
a pinch of cinnamon

In a pan, sear the banana in the brown butter. Once one side of the bananas are browned and they are flipped onto the other side, add in the rum, and carefully flambe the pan. Add in the remaining ingredients and gently stir the bananas through the rum, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Allow the bananas to cool before using in the baking process.

For the phyllo dough:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup water
a pinch of salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, browned

In a bowl, mix everything but the butter to form a dough. Split the dough into four pieces and roll each out to a 6-inch disk. Brush three of the disks with the brown butter, then stack all of the disks together, with the un-brushed one on top. Roll the dough out as thinly as possible, trying to get the dough into a 12-inch by 8-inch rectangle. At that point, dust with flour and transfer to a nonstick surface. Spread the pastry cream onto the rectangle first, then add on the flambeed banana slices. Roll up the dough into a scroll, then coil it into a loose disk. Transfer it to a lined 6-inch ring mold, placed on a sheet tray. Refrigerate the dough for 10 minutes.

To bake with:
Walnuts
White chocolate
Brown butter

Once the dough has been refrigerated, score the top of the dough using scissors, and then brush with brown butter. Sprinkle on walnuts and white chocolate chips. Bake at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes, rotating the tray halfway through the baking process, then reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F, and bake, with tin foil covering the top of the pastry, for another 35 minutes.