Creamy Banana Pudding

An old fashioned, classic banana pudding made with simple ingredients…

 

 

I am back this week with another theme for the Blogging Marathon #122. As usual, I went with a theme that would deem easy as well as would help me get through some of my drafts plus some more on my to-do list. Hehe… This week, the theme I chose was “Sweets with Fruits or Vegetables”. As much as I love to eat my fruits, I always wonder if I can use them to make something sweet. Since I am in a mission to try and reduce all the weight that the lockdown has bought onto me – I don’t want to blame it completely but still… 😉 – I am trying to reduce making sweets at home. If I do make, I keep the quantity minimal and end up distributing it as much as I can, after doing a taster. At times I feel sad that I am not eating as much as I would like to, but somewhere I need to draw a line on myself, isn’t it?

 

Anyway, coming back to the recipe for today… Banana Pudding is said to be a classic dessert in any South American kitchen. The dessert is nothing but some crushed wafer like cookies, a luscious creamy custard pudding interlayered with sliced bananas. Sounds simple, isn’t it? Since I don’t have banana fans at home – one of who celebrated her fourtheenth birthday a couple of days ago, Alhamdulillah… –  I decided to try the famous Magnolia Bakery banana pudding before trying to make them at home. I must say I didn’t like it. It was overtly sweet and quite dense in texture for me. After reading so many great reviews, oohs and aahs all over the net, I was immensely disappointed to have paid so much for something I really didn’t enjoy. 🙁

 

 

Fast forward to this attempt to try making banana pudding at home…. I had all the ingredients that I wanted, mainly the overripe bananas. Hehe… You actually don’t need over ripe bananas for this recipe. You would need them to be just of the right ripeness, but ensure that there isn’t a hint of rawness in it, or else it would spoil up the entire pudding for you. We toss them up in some lemon juice so that they don’t change color. The next layer is the wafer rolls. You can used crushed cookies but if you find unflavored wafer rolls, it is the best. I found them in Lulu under their own brand in a pack of 150 gm. They felt like the wafer biscuits without the cream in it. They weren’t that amazing to eat on their own but when they went into this pudding, it was amazing! It have a nice texture and beautiful crunch to the pudding.

 

Then comes the custard layer. The pudding is a simple cooked custard folded into some whipped cream, making it light and fluffy. It is advised make the custard in advance so that it gets cooled in time for the assembly. Once assembled, allow it ample resting time for the flavors to mingle, and then just dig in post a heavy lunch. Unlike the Banoffee pie, this pudding is quite light to the tummy and very enjoyable. If you want a more banana-ey flavor, you can try adding some banana essence to the custard, but I thought that the bananas themselves did a good job spreading their flavors throughout the pudding, although they were lying at the bottom. Hehe… Off to this simple recipe…