Tag Archives: banana

You Gotha Try This Banana Pudding, Pt. 3 of a Family Food Saga

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banana pudding 4

Banana Pudding. There’s a hundred recipes out there, each one claiming to be the best. How do you determine which is the best? Easy, it’s the one you grew up on. See, it is not about the taste when it comes to banana pudding (unless you find yourself face to face with a bowl made by someone who doesn’t know what the hell they’re doing), banana pudding is about memories.

I come from a big family. BIG. Not only do we breed like bunnies but once you become friends with someone in the family, you become family. There’s no getting out either. Kind of like the mafia but with less violence.

With a big family and the merging with other families comes many variations of banana pudding. To me each one is good. One does stand out above the rest but for the sake of family peace I will not name names. Over the years I have learned these recipes and have combined the best of each one to make…‘You Gotha Taste This Banana Pudding’. I’m sure the name won’t catch on but I think once you try this banana pudding recipe you just might be hooked.

You Gotha Taste this Banana Pudding

Ingredients:

Bananas

Vanilla Wafers

Vanilla instant pudding, 2 small boxes

2 ½ cups milk

1 small tub of cool whip, thawed

½ small can of condensed milk about 7 ounces.

2 tsp. vanilla extract

In a large bowl mix the 2 boxes of pudding with 2 ½ cups milk. I use a hand mixer. Once mixed add condensed milk (you can use the whole can but your banana pudding will be way to sweet) along with the vanilla extract. Beat until it has a smooth pudding consistency and has started to thicken up slightly. Gently fold on the cool whip. I put my pudding mixture in fridge until I’m ready to assemble.

Just the pudding and milk

Just the pudding and milk

With cool whip added

With cool whip added

While you’re pudding mixture is chilling out in the fridge, take a handful of vanilla wafers, place them into a Ziploc bag, and seal it.

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Find a weapon, I use a hammer with a dishrag or small hand towel laid over the bag (this prevents the hammer from tearing open the bag). Now beat the wafers. Beat them until they are vanilla crumbs. This will be the topping.

Beating the wafers. Ignore my chipped nail polish

Beat the wafers. Chipped nail polish is optional.

wafers to crumbs

wafers to crumbs

Slice your bananas. The amount depends pretty much on what you have on hand. I usually have a lot since my dad is always coming by with a bag of bananas he found on sale. I swear that man has not met a banana he didn’t like.

I just toss the banana slices into the cool whip bowl. No need to dirty extra dishes.

I just toss the banana slices into the cool whip bowl. No need to dirty extra dishes.

Once the bananas are sliced it’s time to get assembling. A pretty bowl or casserole dish is what you need.

Line the bottom of your bowl/dish with vanilla wafers. Spoon half of your pudding mixture over wafers. Add a layer of bananas. Repeat.

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Wafers, pudding mixture and banana.

Wafers, pudding mixture and banana.

Now the top is up to you. Some people line the top with whole wafers while others sprinkle the top with wafers crumbs. There are even those who lay down another layer of wafers, cover with a layer of just plain cool whip then sprinkle wafer crumbs. No wrong choice here. Cover with foil and allow to sit in the fridge a few hours.

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An important note: if you are making this dish for a get together you must make a small bowl of banana pudding and put in fridge. Why? Because if it’s like my family gatherings you’re not going to get any of it unless you do this.

Cover with foil and let chill in fridge for a few hours.

Bowl I made for myself as I was assembling the banana pudding

Bowl I made for myself as I was assembling the banana pudding

banana pudding 3

banana pudding 2

banana pudding 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Give Good Bread

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First off, please forgive the title. It’s been a long day and lack of sleep is catching up with me.

Awhile back the hubby and I were out shopping. I decided to buy a wax burner for scented wax. Here is the conversation the hubby and I had in the store.

Me: “I’m going to buy this to melt scented wax since I know how to get the used wax out now.”

Hubby: “Oh is that something else you saw on Pinterest?” This was said dripping with sarcasm and ending with a dramatic rolling of the eyes.

Me: “No, it’s has instructions here on the box.” This was said in the tone of voice that clearly translated into, ‘you’re an asshole.’

Hubby: “humph.”

I stood there in the store thinking to myself, “Self do you think maybe you Pinterest too much?”

Self replied, “hell no.”

I then giggled out loud.  The hubby stared at me like I had just jumped on the crazy train.

Me: “Let’s hurry up and get home.”

Hubby: “What’s the hurry? I thought we were going to get coffee.”

Me: “Not now, you got me wanting to go home to get on Pinterest.”

Hubby: I can’t put down his reply. Just know it contained strong language.

He is not always anti-Pinterest. He is extremely pro-Pinterest when I’m trying out a recipe I discovered while at that much loved site. Like last night when I found a new banana bread recipe. (As you have read before, my dad is always bringing me bananas) Normally I use my go-to banana bread recipe that I got from my Aunt Betty…Crocker. But with the over abundance of bananas I had this week I had used up all of the box mixes.  So when I saw a Pin that said the bread was so good people drove for miles to eat a slice, how could I not try it?

I gathered everything I needed. I began to doubt this recipe when I realized it did not call for water or milk. Just oil and eggs. But life is not about playing it safe so I went with it. The only thing I added that was not in the recipe was pecans. How can you not have nuts in your banana bread? That is insane!

Here is the recipe. I do not give a measurement on the pecans because I don’t measure them myself. I just throw some in. Okay I throw a lot in.

This is the link that will take you to the Banana Bread pin.

Banana Bread

Dry ingredients:

1 ¾ all-purpose flour

1 ½ tsp. baking soda

¾ tsp salt

1 ½ cup sugar

Wet:

3 lg. eggs

¾ cup vegetable oil (I used coconut oil)

2 mashed bananas

Pecans or walnuts. Hell both if you want. Remember the nuts are optional. Except at my house, here it is a must.

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Butter bottom of your bread pan.

Mix your dry items in a bowl. In another bowl mix your wet.  The recipe said to mix the bananas in with the oil and eggs until smooth.  In all the years I have made banana bread I have always added the bananas at the end after you mixed the batter. So I beat the eggs and oil together. Now you pour that in with your dry items. Mix. Add the bananas, mix some more. Now add your nuts. As much as you want, don’t be afraid to go nuts with them. Put in over bake 60 to 70 minutes.

Now let me tell you how this went down. Most breads I bake, I bake them between 375 to 400 degrees for 40 to 50 minutes. Never had an issue. But I followed the recipe. 50 minutes into my bake time I began to smell the bread burning. Hey must be done, I thought. Fork tested it. Nope not done. It took the whole 70 minutes. The top and edges were very darn close to burnt. My bread loving soul was not happy. Once it cooled I sliced us a piece to try. The hubby loved it. It was pretty good. Close to being just as good at Aunt Betty’s. This is a dense bread. If you want a lighter more fluffy bread, this is not for you.

The burning was totally my fault, I know my oven. I should have sided with my oven and not the recipe. I will make this again but will adjust my temperature and bake time.

Here is a photo. You can see that the bread is extremely well done. Don’t let my photo turn you off of this recipe. It is really good.

My pretty-damn-close-to-burnt bread

My pretty-damn-close-to-burnt bread

Banana Bread from Pinterest

Banana Bread from Pinterest

Thank you for joining me in my Pinteresting addiction.

These Bananas are Driving Me Bananas!

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I thought I would start this out with a funny story before getting to my recent Pin recreation. Turns out the Pin I attempted ended up being the funny story.

If my dad is at the store and bananas are on sale he will buy them. Not for himself, but for me and the hubby. So every few days dad is popping over with a bag of bananas. A WHOLE bag. So today I have twelve over ripe bananas needing to be used. Two loaves of banana bread later I still have a boat load of bananas left. So Pinteresting I went.

　

I found Lazy Morning Banana Cake after a quick search for banana recipes.

Simple, easy to follow directions. Where did this go wrong? Or did any of it ever go right?

I had all the ingredients. Thought I understood the recipe and instructions. Problem number one: I could not find my measuring spoons. So I guess-a-mated. Problem number two: was I suppose to use all purpose or self rising flour? I only had self rising available. I had a fifty percent chance of using the right flour. Problem number three: I poured the batter into the pan. To me it seemed like way to much for one round pan. But the recipe used one. I trusted the recipe. Problem number four: I forgot to add the butter to the batter. The cake was already in the oven by then so I was committed at this point. Or should have been committed.

Thankfully I put a pan on the bottom rack just below the cake in case there was too much batter. I will let the photo tell some of the story.

Serious cake overflow

Serious cake overflow

The bake time was suppose to be twenty-five minutes. TWO sets of twenty-five minutes later and the cake still wasn’t done. Skelly was sitting at the table with his mouth hanging open. I believe that bony fellow was laughing at me. I was not in a laughing mood. There was also another pin going wrong during this time. Maybe I would see the humor in all of this later. Much later.

On a positive note the baking cake was smelling pretty damn awesome. So after seventy minutes bake time I took the cake from the oven. Was it done inside? I didn’t care at this point because the top was beginning to burn. After letting the cake sit a few minutes I worked up enough nerve to perform the fork test. Woohoo ! The fork came out clean. The cake was done. Finally. As you can tell by the photo that cake was not going to come out of the pan without a fight. The battle was epic. Ballads will one day be sung about this battle. In the end the cake did come out of the pan (not in one piece) and all that awaited was the taste test. I let the husband try it first. With some urging from him I finally took a bite. Oh my goodness. This disaster of a baking experience resulted in the best tasting banana cake EVER. Would I bake it again? Hell no! I’m still trying to get that damn pan clean. By the way I do realize my mistake now. I should not have used the baking soda with self rising flour. Okay that wasn’t my only mistake but it was where everything began to go wrong.

The cake

The cake

But you should give it a go. Just use a measuring spoon, maybe all purpose flour and divide the batter into two pans. Oh and don’t forget the butter. Let me know how it turns out. As I’m sitting here trying to decide how to finish off the bananas I still have left I see my dad walking to the door. Guess what he has a bag of?

Here is the original pin: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/314337248963963121/

Lazy Morning Banana Cake

Ingredients:
2 ripe bananas
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, softened
3/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and flour pan.

Mash up the bananas.

Mix everything but the bananas. After mixing fold in the bananas. Pour into pan (or pans if you screw up the batter like I did) Bake for twenty-five minutes. Done when you can insert a fork and it pulls out clean. Good luck and may the cake gods show mercy upon you.

Thanks for joining me on another Pinteresting adventure. Here is a photo of the Banana Bread. I will share the recipe soon.

The Amazing Rock Your World Banana Bread

The Amazing Rock Your World Banana Bread