Banana Pudding

Hi and welcome to a special Father's Day edition of Adventures In Baking.  I knew I'd be visiting my Dad this past weekend so I made one of his favorite desserts, Banana Pudding.  This is my grandmas one and only dessert recipe.  Well, this and fruit salad.  And she's really good at dialing the phone number for Larry's House of Cakes.

Banana Pudding
Recipe from the kitchen of Violet Jeter
3 large eggs
3/4 cup sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 cup Milnot
1 1/2 cup water
Vanilla Wafers
3 bananas

Meringue
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon cream of tarter
6 tablespoons sugar

The ingredients.  Not too many ingredients and no instant pudding here ..... this baby's gonna be made from scratch.

Let's get started.  The first step is to separate the egg and yolk.  Because I'm at my parents house, because my mom had this (not)  handy egg separator thing and because I have a severe aversion to eggs, I made some amazingly grossed out faces while completing the separation.  Crack the egg (no problem), pour the egg into the separator (no problem), let the white separate from the yolk (problem).  Those are some slimy, squishy, goopy egg whites.  I had to use my hands.  It wasn't pretty.  Not that I have a lot of experience separating eggs, but I found it much easier to toss the egg back and forth between the two cracked shells to accomplish the separating.  And I mean lightly toss, not pizza pie toss. More like juggle back and forth. But not like a clown at a circus juggling oranges. Maybe pass is the word I'm looking for.   Pass the yolk back and forth.  But not like a football ..... Nevermind, just separate the eggs.  And let's not do that again anytime soon.

Next step.  Beat the sugar, flour and egg yolks.  Gradually add the Milnot and water.

 

And then.  Cook on the stove top over Medium heat until it's thick, 10-15 minutes.  Stir constantly.  You don't want to bring it to a full boil, but when it starts to bubble, you're just about finished.  Continue stirring over the heat for 2 additional minutes.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool and thicken. 

Build it.  While your pudding is cooling, begin the layering process.  In a large, oven safe bowl, place a single layer of Vanilla Wafers.  Top the wafers with a layer of sliced bananas.  On top of the bananas spoon one -third of the pudding. 

Repeat two more times for a total of three layers each of wafers, bananas and pudding.

Final step.  The meringue.  Begin by beating the egg whites, vanilla and cream of tarter.  Slowly add sugar and continue beating until the mixture forms firm peaks.  Spread the meringue on top of the pudding and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the topping is golden brown.  Like a huge toasted marshmallow. 

The taste test.  I would say four thumbs up but the two people tasting the pudding couldn't put their spoons down long enough to show me their thumbs.  I'd say it was a hit.   This was the first dessert I've made that I didn't taste for myself.  I'm OK with that. 

The clean up.  This makes one large bowl of pudding, but would be really cute in single serve ramekins.  And I have it on good authority that it's a make it and eat it kinda dessert.   Don't save it for the next day or try to make it too far in advance. 

On the next episode of Adventures In Baking I have a classic cookie recipe sent to me by my aunt.   I'm looking forward to the taste test on this one.

Happy Baking

-Teddra