Dolly Parton’s Mother’s Banana Pudding with Banana-Infused Custard

I recently bought a new cookbook Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream by Dana Cree after Büşra @bsrsaglam recommended it during her Sunday Cookbook Club. I’ll write more about the book another time, but one technique immediately caught my attention.

In her banana ice cream recipe, very ripe bananas are infused into the dairy and then strained out. You get all that lovely banana flavour without adding the banana flesh, and therefore without bringing all the starch into the finished ice cream.

I had already ripened some bananas intending to make the ice cream, but never quite got around to it.

Then this month’s Rainy Day Bites Cookbook Club challenge was to make a Dolly Parton recipe, and I came across Dolly Parton’s mother’s banana pudding: an old-fashioned Southern dessert made with homemade custard, vanilla wafers, fresh bananas and baked meringue.

So I wondered: why not use Dana Cree’s banana-infusion technique for the custard?

It worked beautifully. The custard tasted distinctly of banana while remaining smooth and silky, and the fresh bananas layered through the pudding added another level of flavour and texture.

Banana-Infused Banana Pudding

Makes approximately 6–8 servings

Ingredients

For the banana-infused milk

475 ml whole milk

150 g caster sugar

2 very ripe bananas

For the custard

3 large egg yolks

60 g plain flour

Pinch of salt

Banana-infused milk, above

55 g unsalted butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

For assembling

Approximately 300–340 g biscuits (or wafers in US)

5–6 bananas, sliced

Rich Tea biscuits are good UK substitutes for Nilla Wafers.

For the meringue

3 large egg whites

50 g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1. Heat the milk and 150 g sugar until very hot, then pour over the peeled ripe bananas. Cool, cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. The next day, strain without pressing the bananas through. Top the milk back up to 475 ml if needed.

3. Whisk the egg yolks, flour and salt in a saucepan, then gradually whisk in the banana-infused milk.

4. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until thick. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.

5. Heat the oven to 175°C conventional / 160°C fan.

6. Layer the biscuits, sliced bananas and custard in a 2-litre dish, repeating once.

7. Whisk the egg whites to soft peaks, gradually add the 50 g sugar and beat until glossy and stiff. Mix in the vanilla, then spread over the pudding.

8. Bake until golden, about 15–20 minutes for one large pudding or 8–10 minutes for individual ones. Cool before serving.