HOME MADE BANANA PUDDING

This Southern Banana Pudding is an heirloom family recipe and classic Southern dessert. Airy meringue atop creamy pudding is a delicious favorite and makes the best banana pudding!

This banana pudding recipe is about as much of a comfort food in the South as it is a dessert. One that everyone always looks forward to digging into to get the perfect ratio of vanilla wafers, pudding, and bananas.

Grandmother always made hers with a towering meringue on top of the pudding that was light as air and the perfect combination with the rich pudding. She would ask my sister and me to help make her recipe for dessert so many times when we were young girls. It was a request I don’t remember ever tiring of hearing. She would ask one of us to carefully line the glass bowl with the vanilla wafers while the other sliced the bananas. We each had an important job and the pudding just wouldn’t work without both of us completing our tasks with care.

Or at least she always made us believe it wouldn’t.

While we were consumed with our duties, Grandmother was busily cooking the pudding on her stovetop. She loved to chat as she cooked, asking us about our day, telling us about when she would help her mother cook, or telling us about a bird she saw when she went to the garden earlier. Her voice was always as sweet and velvety as the pudding she was stirring.

Ingredients:

1/2 c. sugar
2 tbsp. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. milk
4 separated eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla flavor
1 box of Nilla Vanilla Wafers
4 med. ripe bananas

DIRECTIONS
Mix flour, salt, and sugar; add milk slowly. Stir constantly over low heat until thickened. Stir and cook for about 15 minutes. Beat egg yolks in bowl and stir into mixture slowly stirring constantly. Cook about 5 more minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Line bottom of casserole dish with vanilla wafers, bananas (sliced) and custard mixture. Repeat layers, ending with custard on top. Beat egg whites until stiff. Add 1/4 cup sugar; whip until it peaks. Spread on top of custard and bake in oven at 450 degrees for about 5 minutes or until browned. Remove from heat & serve.