Crafts, Cooking, Farmers Market Addictions: Grandmas Homemade Banana Pudding with gluten free option

My Grandma was famous for her banana pudding. We moved in with her when I was in grade school and she helped raise my brother and I. Growing up, we had potluck lunches on Sundays after church at Trinity Baptist Church and Grandma almost always took banana pudding and fried chicken. Most of the time she made them on Saturday night or would get up early Sunday morning and cooked them before Sunday School time. Her banana pudding was to die for, it was so delicious. She topped it with meringue which wasn't a favorite of mine, I liked whipped cream better, but it was so good I ate the meringue anyway. Going through the line at the potluck lunch if you didn't get the pudding first go around with your food it was most often gone when you went back for dessert. And even though Grandma made it all the time, my brother and I piled it on our plates at church. I loved the vanilla wafer cookies the best so when she made it just for us at home she would add extra cookies for me. I asked her if she followed a recipe and she said no, she just made a custard and put it over the cookies and bananas. She always said that she "just cooked groceries" and wasn't really into recipes as such. In later years, when I was grown, she started using the boxed cooked vanilla pudding mix as a short cut, but she did something to it that made it taste homemade but I'm not sure what. Over the years, I've made attempts to make her banana pudding and a couple of times came close according to family members, My daughters also grew up with her banana pudding as she would make it for any family gatherings, most often we requested it.

Recently, I started going through mine and my mother's family cookbooks that we put together when I was younger. I have old recipes from my grandma, Aunt Dorothy, great-grandma, Bamah, and my mom in Aunt Dorothy and mom's handwriting and one in Grandma's. I'm in the process of preserving them and also trying out the recipes, so look for future posts concerning them. Sadly, we don't have a copy of Grandma's banana pudding but I did find a Homemade Banana Pudding recipe from Adrian Drinkard, I'm not sure who that was, but was written out by my mom. It gives instruction for making a custard and meringue so is like what Grandma did. My daughter, Tabitha, and I made it this past weekend and it turned out really well. My meringue needed some work but the custard was good and we decided it was really close to Grandma's. Next time I make it, I'm going to use whipped cream instead of meringue but I wanted to go classic this time.

Here's the recipe:

Homemade Banana Pudding

for custard

1 c. sugar

4 T. flour

1 12 oz. can of evaporated milk

1 1/2 c. milk (I didn't use evaporated milk but just used 3 cups of milk)

8 eggs, separated, use yolks only for custard

1 T. vanilla

4 bananas, sliced

1 box of vanilla wafers

for meringue

8 egg whites

1/4 t. cream of tarter

1 t. vanilla

2 to 4 T. sugar

Line baking dish with vanilla wafers and sliced bananas. In medium saucepan, mix sugar and flour and on low heat slowly add milk, stirring well until sugar is dissolved and flour incorporated. Beat egg yolks well in bowl and add to milk mixture. Turn up heat, to medium-high and stirring constantly, cook custard until starts to thicken and comes to a light boil, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour over vanilla wafers and banana slices in baking dish. For meringue beat together egg whites, cream of tarter and sugar until very stiff peaks. Beat in a pinch of salt and vanilla. Spread over top of custard and brown slowly in broiler, takes less than 1 minute. Or can top with whipped cream instead of meringue.

My daughter, Aubree, visited us over Christmas and is gluten intolerant so we made a gluten free version of Grandma's banana pudding. It turned out very yummy and we really couldn't tell the difference. We also did a whipped cream topping instead of meringue which we really liked better.

Gluten free option,
Substitute 4 T of flour with same amount of tapioca flour
2 cups of heavy whipping cream instead of 3 cups of milk
gluten free cinnamon cookies instead of vanilla wafers

Whipped topping instead of meringue
Whip 1 1/2 cups of heavy whipping cream until soft peaks and add 1 t of vanilla.

Enjoy,

Bamah