Mama Roxie's Sunday Banana Pudding

By YogiRenee

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs ( separated)
• 2 cups of milk
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 tab- cornstarch
• 1/4 cup
• 1 stick or 4 ounces butter
• Dash of salt
• 4-5 large ripe bananas
• Meringue

Preparation

Step 1

1. Prepare pan or baking dish. ( This was my job as a very young child- too small to stand at the stove).
Crush vanilla wafers in the bottom of a baking dish. This recipe works well in any 9x9 or round pyrex type dish or metal pan. The recipe can be doubled for crowds to fill a 9x13 pan.
Crush a thin or thick layer, for that matter of vanilla wafer in the bottom of the baking dish. Stand up whole, unbroken wafers along the sides of the dish. The crushed wafers on the bottom will keep the whole cookies upright along the sides.

2. Mix egg yolks (reserve egg whites for meringue), milk, sugar, vanilla,salt and cornstarch together until cornstarch dissolves and mixture is smooth. You can use a hand whisk, fork, hand mixer or even a quick whirl in the blender. Set aside.

3. Gently melt the butter in a saucepan or a double boiler. Let cool then stir pudding mixture into the butter and return to low heat or double boiler. Cook mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens . This will take from 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Place one layer of sliced bananas over crushed wafers in the bottom of the pan. Carefully spread slightly cooled pudding over the bananas. Cover with a layer of whole vanilla wafers. repeat bananas,pudding and wafers until you reach the top of your dish or pan.
Top with meringue, bake in 350 degree oven until meringue tips are golden, 12 15 minutes. Baking too long will cause meringue to weep.

COOK'S NOTES
Let cool as long as you can before serving- although slightly warm banana pudding fresh from the oven is a special treat. I do not douse my cut bananas in lemon juice. I find that even a slight lemon taste interferes with the pure vanilla goodness. We don't care if the bananas are a little brown. they match the cookies. Banana pudding does not store well in the refrigerator- the bananas get hard and the meringue can get tough but there is rarely any left . You can leave the meringue off and top with whatever you like - but I continue to make the meringue in deference to the home cooks of the 1950's. My mother's original recipe came from the side of the Nabisco Vanilla Wafer box. Over the years I have reduced the amount of sugar in the recipe . The recipe originally called for 2 cups of sugar. Sometimes I use as little as one and one fourth cups.
My mother would sometimes make this dessert every weekend for a month during the winter, using whatever ingredients she had on hand. Of course, Nabisco vanilla wafers will do- but if you have the time to make your own vanilla wafers from scratch- go for it!
Nowadays in my family a banana pudding has become a rare, nostalgic, luxe event. Trader Joe's has a phenomenal tasting vanilla wafer on their cookie aisle and I use European butter, organic sugar, full fat grass fed whole milk and double strength vanilla from Penzey's. If you're only going to get this once or twice a year- it better be good!