How To Make Banana Pudding

While many theories exists as to what makes banana pudding Southern at all, my favorite is this: Banana pudding is cool comfort food for a crowd. You likely have most of the ingredients on hand, it hardly heats up the kitchen, and a big batch takes just as little time as a small batch.

Although banana pudding has become synonymous with the American South, this ubiquitous dessert may have actually been born in New England just after the Civil War. Bananas were still a luxury at the time, so it took more than a half century for the banana pudding to become a Southern icon. Food historians believe that banana pudding moved south after the nationwide adoption of home refrigeration, when bananas became more readily available (and cheaper), and the invention (and heavy marketing of) the mass-market vanilla wafer in the 1940s.

Banana pudding starts with a rich vanilla pudding. That’s right — there are no actual bananas in the pudding. In its infancy, banana pudding was just like any other good English trifle: it used leftover bits and pieces of this and that. In fact, many of the early banana pudding recipes call for cake and other fruit in place of the vanilla wafer cookies and bananas.

Vanilla pudding is easy to make on the stovetop with a few tips.

• Whisk the cornstarch and sugar together to break up clumps in the cornstarch.
• Keep the heat low.
• Whisk continuously and to further avoid lumps.

Wondering About the Difference? Pudding vs Custard: What’s Your Pleasure?

Contrary to many recipes suggestion, banana pudding is not a good use for overripe bananas. Bananas play a contrasting role in the finished dish; they are the chewy element to counter the creamy pudding and crunchy wafers, so don’t go with mushy bananas. Using bananas that are slightly underripe will also help the pudding last longer in the refrigerator.

Building a banana pudding is a simple task of layering vanilla wafer cookies with the bananas and cold custard. The key, though, is to have the custard made and cooled in advance, as warm custard would cook the bananas and turn the wafers to complete mush. Toss the bananas with a little lemon juice after slicing to prevent browning, then build the trifle and refrigerate before whipping the whipped cream top.