The first time I submitted a Mississippi top twelve, it was like throwing a June bug down in a flock of chickens.
The pot roast was devastated by a barrage of loyalists who maintained it’s “just got Yankee written all over it.” The red velvet cake was accused, convicted, and shot for being a Waldorf recipe, and the pecan pie was mined by a sweet potato. I substituted pound cake for red velvet and sweet potato pie for pecan. The roast lost to stewed greens–which damn near lost out to limas.
Here’s the treaty, but rumor has it the pecan pie faction plans a fifth column action from Belzoni.
For best flavor, you must use bananas that are soft, aromatic, and with a light freckling. The vanilla wafers should just be broken up into small pieces, not reduced to crumbs. Some people top these with whipped cream and a banana slice, but that makes them soggy.
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup cane sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ripe banana mashed
1 package banana cream instant pudding mix
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup smashed vanilla wafers
Preheat oven to 350, and line baking pans with lightly oiled parchment paper. Combine flour and baking soda, then set aside. Cream butter and sugar thoroughly, add the banana, pudding mix, and eggs. Mix until smooth and slowly stir in the dry ingredients, then blend in the chips and wafers. Use about a tablespoon of dough for each cookie. Bake until lightly browned, about ten minutes.
Do not make banana pudding with green bananas. Even if the fruit has a tinge of green on the ribs, the banana will be hard and bitter. You must use bananas that are ripe.
Now, you’re not going to find ripe bananas in the grocery store–sometimes I think the public has been conditioned by years of buying green bananas that any banana with a dark spot is spurned–so you’re going to have to buy them a bit green. Fortunately bananas are a climacteric; they ripen for a while after picking. Daddy, who was stationed in the Pacific during WWII, and knew quite well how a ripe banana tasted– put bunches on top of the refrigerator–where we couldn’t reach them–to ripen.
Place grocery bananas in a paper sack–plastic doesn’t let the fruit breathe–and in two or three days, when the fruit is soft and aromatic you’re ready to make banana pudding. Or banana pound cake.
A delicious twist on a traditional favorite. Mix two packages instant vanilla pudding mix with a cup of milk, refrigerate until partly set. Stir in a can of condensed milk, 8 oz. each of sour cream and whipped topping, 3 ripe (freckled) bananas, sliced or diced, a drained 8 oz. can crushed or chunk pineapple. Layer with vanilla wafers—wafers first, pudding last—and crush a few wafers to sprinkle on top. Some people will sprinkle coconut between the layers and add to the topping. Chill before serving.
Banana pudding casts a golden glow upon our lives. Never have I met anyone who doesn’t like ‘nanner puddin’, but I know in the cockles of my heart that should I ever, my dislike for them will be immediate, profound, and on the spot. I’ll probably stomp on their toe or something.
But banana pudding, like so many treasures on our sideboard, has been corrupted by convenience. What’s most often served as banana pudding is made with cheap cookies, packaged Jell-O, green bananas, and topped with Cool Whip. Quality banana pudding is made with Nabisco/Nilla Vanilla Wafers (kinda/sorta the same thing), ripe, fragrant bananas, vanilla custard, topped with meringue and browned.
First, the custard. Separate 4 eggs; blend the yolks well with 2 cups whole milk (or, better, half-and-half), and a teaspoon vanilla extract. Put this mix in a double boiler. Combine ½ cup sugar with 1/3 cup all-purpose flour, and slowly stir into the warm liquid. Cooking until thick, then cool.
You’ll need about 5 bananas. I implore you to select bananas well beforehand, because if you can only find bananas that have a tinge of green on them, you can set them on a shelf in the kitchen until they soften and ripen. And, yes, a banana will develop sugars in the pulp after being picked. Wait until the bananas are still firm, but lightly flecked with brown. Trust me, this is an essential step. An 11 oz. box of wafers has about 40 cookies. Use all of them.
Begin with a layer of custard in the bottom of an 8×8 baking dish, then a layer of wafers, then a layer of sliced bananas, repeat these layers. Whip egg whites with ¼ cup sugar until stiff. Top pudding with meringue and place in a very hot oven (400) until lightly browned. Cool thoroughly before serving, but this is best made the morning of and not refrigerated.
