Homemade Southern Banana Pudding

Hello everyone!

When I married my husband, I enjoyed going to his parents house regularly and eating a lot of delicious homemade southern food.  His mom was a great cook!  After she had a stroke, she was no longer able to cook her delicious meals anymore.  So, in order to enjoy some of the foods she used to prepare, I had to learn how to make them myself!  One of my favorites was her banana pudding.  Now, when I asked her for a recipe, she was the kind of gal who just knew it by heart and whipped it together quickly.  So, I didn't really ever get a specific recipe to follow.  But, I did remember that she made it completely from scratch with meringue on top.  So, I went searching for a comparable recipe online and found one that seemed to match what she made.  You can find it HERE.  You can actually print the recipe from this site and you'll be able to make it yourself.  It is so GOOD! 

Now, my pictures don't do this recipe justice, but I wanted to share the step by step process so you can see it's not too difficult.  It's just time consuming.  

First, preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Combine flour, sugar and salt in a saucepan.

Then separate your egg yolks from the whites and beat the yolks with milk.

Pour this mixture into the dry mixture in the saucepan.

Stir and cook until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and add some vanilla extract.

Begin layering your pudding with vanilla wafers and bananas in a 13 X 9 pan.

Pour 1/3 of your pudding mixture (from the saucepan) over this.

Continue doing this 2 more times.  You will have used up all of your vanilla wafers, bananas, and pudding mixture by this time.

Now, let's make some meringue!

Simply use the egg whites you saved along with some cream of tartar and some sugar and beat until stiff peaks form.  Add some vanilla at the end.  

Then, spread this meringue on top of your pudding mixture.

Bake it in the oven for about 25 minutes.

The meringue will be light brown and the pudding mixture will be hot!  It is delicious warm, but will thicken if you put it in the refrigerator.  

One bit of advice, try to make sure your top layer on the pudding (before you add meringue) is vanilla wafers.  It will help keep your bananas from turning brown.  Once you cut into it, you expose the bananas to air and they will turn brown. They are still safe to eat and taste the same, but don't look so pretty!  I also advise storing it in an airtight container. You can also dip your bananas in lemon juice to prevent them from turning brown too.  I have not tried that before but  heard it works.

I forgot to get a pic of it on a serving plate, but it's pure yumminess! 

Hope you will give this a try.  Let me know what you think if you do!

Again, click HERE for the printable recipe.

Have a great weekend.

~ Kelly ~