I’ve been so quiet on here. I know, I KNOW, but what really in life has changed? Get up, walk, work, exercise, work some more, assemble some dinner. Bed, sleep, repeat. My routine veered enough this past week to make this bananas foster banana pudding, and that is worthy of some words.
Honestly, this past weekend I did break from routine a bit. It was my birthday and I spent a few hours Saturday doing my one favorite thing, which is browsing in a bookstore, and Sunday with some of my favorite people doing another of my favorite things: spending time on the water before stuffing my face with tacos and ice cream. A good way to ring in 39.
The food routine has been salad after salad, and since I divulged my secrets for making the best one, I can’t offer you any more than that this week besides this pudding. Don’t worry though – I feel the inklings of cooking spark within me again. I thought for a second about making a pot of chili soon before I realized that it’s still 80 degrees out. But, it’s good to know that fall is coming. Chili, with or without football, is coming.
But for now, we’re still no-baking, no-churning and this pudding is what we’ve got, so let me tell you a bit about it.
One of my insta-friends started a recipe club back when the pandemic started and every two weeks we get together to cook a recipe. This week she offered her mom’s recipe for banana pudding, which you’ve probably heard of: Nilla wafers, vanilla pudding mix, Cool whip and sliced bananas. Well, since I don’t always opt for doing the least, I opted to do the most this week to make this a little more laborious, a little more grown up way.
First, the pudding. Vanilla pudding, which, I MADE FROM SCRATCH (cue Rachel Green). I used a bit of Deb’s recipe and a bit of my own flair to make something that came together one morning before I sat down for work. SO easy.
I whipped up real whipped cream, as I do more often that I should and added a bit’o’ Captain Morgan to it. As I don’t do often enough.
I fostered fresh bananas in a pan with butter, brown sugar, more rum and a touch of flambé.
For the Nilla wafers, I subbed out my favorite chocolate-less Digestive biscuits. Chocolate-full would have been just dandy.
All assembled into a little parfait, this is one snack pack that we can all very much get behind.
What are you waiting for?
Bananas Foster Banana Pudding
Homemade bananas foster banana pudding is a grown up version of a classic no bake recipe with a boozy adult twist!
Ingredients
- For the pudding:
- 1 TB unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 TB cornstarch
- 1/8 tsp sea salt
- 1 1/4 cup 2% or whole milk
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg yolk. beat
- For the whipped cream:
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 TB spiced rum
- 3 TB granulated sugar
- For the bananas foster:
- 1 large banana, sliced
- 2 TB unsalted butter
- 4 TB brown sugar
- 2 TB spiced rum
- 4 Digestive cookies, crushed
Directions
- Step 1 First, make the pudding:
- Step 2 In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and reduce heat to medium-low. Let it heat and bubble for 1 minutes, stirring frequently. and watching it so it doesn’t burn. Reduce heat to low. Add salt and cornstarch, stirring until combined — a whisk works well for this. Drizzle in the milk/cream mixture and whisk constantly to ensure that all the lumps are mixed out. add the milk in a thin drizzle, whisking the whole time, so that no lumps form. Cook over low to medium-low, stirring frequently, until the mixture comes to a gentle simmer. Add your egg yolk to a small bowl, and slowly add 1/2 cup of the pudding liquid to it, whisking constantly, very careful to not scramble the egg. Add the egg mixture to the rest of the pudding. Let it simmer for a full minute, until thick (don’t worry- it will further set in the fridge). Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. Pour into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, putting the plastic directly onto the pudding to avoid getting a ‘scab.” Chill until set, at least 2 hours.
- Step 3 About 15 minutes before you’re ready to serve the pudding, make the foster sauce. Over medium heat, add the butter and sugar to a cast iron pan or skillet. Let cook 1-2 minutes until bubbly. Add the bananas and cook another minute. Add the rum, and CAREFULLY light the rum on fire. Put back on the stove while the alcohol burns off. Let cool 5 minutes.
- Step 4 Meanwhile, to a small bowl, add the whipping cream and sugar. Whip until medium stiff peaks form. Add the rum and continue whipping until just a bit stiffer and you get a nice ‘dollop’.
- Step 5 Assemble the parfaits in 2 glasses. Starting with 1 crushed cookie in each cup, then a layer of pudding, then a layer of whipped cream and then the bananas. Repeat in each glass until the ingredients are all used up. Enjoy!
