sunday sweets {banana pudding}

Banana pudding is one of those things that is quintessentially southern. I had never had it before moving down here, but it became one of the only things I would sneak from the restaurant I worked at. It's delicious, so delicious that when invited to a friend's house for dinner this weekend, I felt it was absolutely necessary to make. When said friend worked with me at the restaurant, we used to sneak spoonfuls of this stuff from the kitchen. It wasn't even that great. The thing about banana pudding is... there's no such thing as a bad one. There's "not that great" ones, but you'll still eat them. This recipe is a good one, really good. Lots of vanilla, and vanilla wafers, which I believe is the best part. You could also make pound cake for this, but I think vanilla wafers are just as good.

Ingredients:

3/4 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup flour

3 cups milk

3 large egg yolks

3 tablespoons butter, room temp

2 teaspoons vanilla {I may or may not have used about an extra teaspoon of vanilla paste}

vanilla wafers cookies

4-5 ripe bananas

home made whipped cream

Directions:

In bowl, combine the sugar, salt, and flour. Slowly stir in milk until smooth. Pour into double broiler over simmering water and stir until mixture thickens.

In a small bowl, whisk 3 large egg yolks, then slowly mix in about 1 cup of hot milk mixture. Return mixture to double broiler, stir in vanilla and butter. Continue whisking and cooking until thickened, remove from heat and let cool.

To cool the pudding mixture quickly, transfer to a ziplock back and rest in an ice water bath.

In a deep dish layer cooled pudding mixture, vanilla wafers, and bananas until full. Make homemade whipped cream {about 1 1/4 heavy cream and 2 teaspoons powdered sugar {depending on taste} and layer on top. Chill until serving. Serve by scooping all layers together, adding crushed vanilla wafers to the top.

Enjoy!