(jazz piano music) - Today we are making one of the South's iconic desserts, good old fashioned nanner pudding custard style.

(jazz piano music) I'm Trace Barnett, and welcome to Garden Party.

Banana pudding is one of those dishes that's just synonymous with any kind of special occasion in the South, and you're probably familiar with two different versions.

So when I think of banana pudding, especially nostalgic-wise, I always harken back to my grandmother's banana pudding, and this is a custard-based banana pudding, where you cook your custard on the stove top, and then pour it generously over your bananas and wafers.

Of course, you're also probably familiar with the instant pudding mix, but I just really prefer this old school nanner pudding.

To begin with, we are gonna start with six room temp eggs, and I want my eggs room temp, because they're easier to separate.

And this is one of my favorite things to do is to separate the eggs too.

There's all those fancy finagle things that separate the egg and the yolk, but I find that this method is just the best.

So just crack your egg directly onto the counter and just separate it like so in its own shell.

If you have fresh eggs, those are usually best to separate.

They're a little bit easier, because the shells are just denser.

Man that had quite a lot of white on that, that's gonna make a good meringue.

We're gonna use the yolks for our filling, which is gonna be the base of our custard, and then our whites, of course, will become our good old Southern traditional meringue.

And I'm doing good here.

No yolks have slid into the bowl yet.

Of course, it's always the last one.

Good plop.

So now that we have our eggs separated, I've got two cups of heavy cream, and I'm just gonna pour that into a sauce pan.

I'm gonna take this to my stove top, and I'm just going to warm it.

I don't wanna scald this cream, so I'm gonna pay close attention to this when it's on the stove top, and I'm just gonna heat it until it's just lukewarm, so almost like a baby's bottle.

(chicken clucking) So I'm gonna take our six egg yolks, and I'm gonna pour those into a large sauce pan.

To our yolks, I am gonna add three-fourths a cup of our sugar, and I'm just gonna whisk this until it kind of all comes together and is smooth, which is not very long at all, and it's just absolutely beautiful.

I'm gonna add in one-fourth of cup of flour.

I'm gonna do this gradually, (jazz piano music) just to incorporate it, and then I'm gonna add in just a pinch of salt.

You don't want too much, 'cause we don't want our custard to turn salty.

That's a whole different thing.

And I'm again gonna whisk this until this is smooth and ... (jazz piano music) (Trace chuckling) Sounds like the symphony.

I'm just gonna whisk this until it's really smooth and glossy, and you can see that color is really coming through, so that's like the traditional banana pudding color that you really want.

So once we have all of that really glossy, smooth custard goodness there, I am gonna pour in our warmed heavy cream.

(jazz music) Now if you had your cream too hot, this would literally just turn to scrambled eggs.

Sweet scrambled eggs, nonetheless, but scrambled eggs.

I'm gonna go ahead and give this a good whisk here on the island, just to give us a head start, and now let's go to the stove top, and let the magic happen.

(xylophone music) (jazz piano music) So we want to heat our custard mixture over a gentle heat, and we are gonna stand and constantly whisk this velvety smooth mixture for three to four minutes, just until it thickens and becomes custard.

So this is just a traditional standard custard that you can basically use for any kind of desserts that you're whipping up.

Last but not least, a little bit of vanilla there.

Of course, I added a little extra, 'cause I'm just a vanilla fiend, and one last whisk, and we are ready to assemble our pudding.

(jazz music) All right.

That custard is looking some count right there.

It's so pretty.

It's just the perfect color too.

So now comes the next step of our nanner pudding, and that's the nanners.

So you're gonna need six to eight bananas here, and I look for bananas when I'm making a banana pudding that have just the tiniest bit of green to them, and the reason I look for bananas that are not fully, fully ripe or overripe is because I really like that banana texture that they have.

They don't seem to break down as easily in our pudding.

Plus it's just the perfect subtle banana flavor.

So we are gonna cut our bananas up into one-fourth inch slices.

Every time I say one-fourth of inch, I'm always like, "How big is that, anyway?"

So about like that.

(intense orchestral music) I usually wait and cut my bananas up after all my components are ready to go, simply because I just don't want them to prematurely brown before they even go into our dish.

Last but not least, the meringue.

I just love saying meringue, I don't think we use it enough.

I don't eat enough meringue.

So I'm gonna take my egg whites, and throw them into a stand mixer.

Of course, you don't have to have a stand mixer, you can just use the handheld beaters, or you can just use the good old elbow grease, and use a whisk.

I'm gonna whip this, just until soft peaks form, at first.

(mixer whirring) I usually start out on a lower setting, and then gradually increase it, so we don't have eggs going everywhere.

(mixer whirring) All right, let's inspect this here.

We eventually want stiffer peaks, but when I add my sugar, I just want them soft.

Just a little bit more.

(mixer whirring) All right, so we are at our soft peaks here, as you can see, so soft peaks are just when the peaks are starting to form and they hold their shape, but they're not exactly solidified in.

So if I would have whipped that to stiff peaks before I added my sugar, it would just turn into super, super hard, it wouldn't incorporate really well.

So I'm gonna latch my mixer here, I'm gonna ahead and turn it up, and I'm gonna gradually add the rest of our sugar.

(mixer whirring) And now I'm gonna crank it up.

(mixer whirring) I think we're almost there.

And that's a stiff peak.

It's almost like a marshmallow.

That's what we're looking for right there, beautiful, stiff, gorgeous peaks.

And as you can see, it's kind of changed color on us too.

So it's very shiny, very bright, very beautiful, just like our pudding's gonna be.

I'm gonna pop this in the fridge just until I'm ready to layer it, I just wanted it to be done so I'm not having to wait on it.

And if you're making meringue, say, in the heat of summer, or on an exceptionally warm day, do it in a stainless steel bowl, and take your bowl, and refrigerate it beforehand, because that will help it retain its stiff peaks.

I'll be right back.

(jazz piano music) My recipe's pretty much the same as my grandparents', just a little bit more updated, they always added cream of tartar, I don't know if back in the day when you didn't have a stand mixer or powerful mixers if that helped whip it up, but I just use sugar, and it always turns out beautiful and shiny.

So people are a little intimidated by meringues too, and you know, once you make your first meringue, you'll get the hang of it, no problem.

It's all just about like the speed of your mixer, whatever you're using, it's all about the speed, and then it's also about temperature.

So if it's super hot that day, like I said, just keep your stuff chilled, do it quickly, and then get it back into the refrigerator till you use it.

There's nothing to it.

So while our meringue is chilling and waiting for us, you're gonna need to count out 40 to 48 vanilla wafers.

No more, no less.

I'm just kidding, I'm using 52 today, so ... Just as long as it's over 40.

I'm gonna do an initial layer directly in the bottom of our pan.

(jazz music) One thing great about using this traditional custard method is I feel like banana pudding when it's made with the pudding mix, tends to really sog up these vanilla wafers.

It doesn't seem to have a long as shelf life, and I really like that crunch that comes from the wafers.

So that's one plus of making your own custard.

So I'm gonna top that with our banana slices, so you can use any kind of casserole dish, nine by 13, whatever, just make sure that it's oven-safe, because we are going to brown our meringue up.

So this banana pudding is great, served warm directly out of the oven, or also just like room temp warm too, and it definitely can be served cold.

All right, that looks about half and half.

So I'm gonna take our custard, and I'm gonna use just about half, and we're gonna smooth that over our wafers and bananas.

Who wouldn't want to go under a big blanket of custard?

So we're gonna repeat our layering process, and I'm just gonna add some more our final vanilla wafers, and our bananas.

(jazz music) And I also prefer to do my banana pudding in a smaller-depth dish, simply because I don't want it to be just so huge and thick, and plus, we'll have our big layer of meringue too.

And let's smear just the last little bit of custard here directly on top.

(jazz music) And now let's add our meringue, fresh out of the fridge, still got those great peaks there.

The key to using meringue is to not overwork it.

We're just gonna basically just fold it over to the sides.

The more you handle meringue and the hotter it gets, the more it turns just into basically egg whites again, just soupier.

I've done this last, and I've allowed our custard mixture just to come to room temperature.

You also don't want to throw your meringue directly on to a hot custard.

Let's just put a little bit of ... Just to get those little peaks there.

(jazz music) Now into our preheated 350 degree oven just till our meringue browns up, and has really pretty golden points.

(clock ticking) Fresh out of the oven nanner pudding, with just the perfect brown meringue.

All right.

This banana pudding's the perfect temperature.

I always like to let mine come to basically room temp and let everything kind of marry together in there.

You don't want your hot meringue also just schlepping off onto your plate.

Last but not least, as if it couldn't get any better, I'm just gonna take a little bit of our wafer dust, and I'm just gonna garnish here.

So let's go in.

I've got Grandmommy's little vintage spoons here, I'm sure there's been a lot of banana puddings Ate off these.

(jazz piano music) Thanks for pudding up with me.

Mm, that my meringue is so fluffy, like a cloud.

(jazz piano music) So let's get started.

I can hear it going "Shh".

(jazz piano music) They're waiting, there we go.

Party foul.

Which side do y'all start peeling your bananas on?

I go both.

Getting thick.

We're getting there.

(jazz piano music) Nailed it.

(jazz piano music) Velvety, rich, smooth, creamy, luxurious, (Trace laughing) decadent, Heaven on Earth ... (Trace laughing) So I've got all of our nanners done here, of course, there's always somebody trying to run away.

Do you know that song by the Beatles, "Yellow Mellow?"

What does it say, "Yellow something custard dripping from a dead dog's eye."

(Trace laughing) The meringue.

And that slick as -- (beep) (jazz piano music) So ... (Trace chuckling) (jazz piano music ending)