Caramelized Banana Pudding

I wish I had read the tips beforehand - everyone was right. Terrible instructions for the pudding set time and way too sweet. Don’t be like me and think that the pudding will set in 4-6 hours; if it’s in a liquid form when you turn off the heat IT WILL STAY THAT WAY. 10-12min on medium heat absolutely does nothing and I even added extra tapioca starch, which is stronger than corn starch. I will be trying this recipe again but only as a guide, with HEAVY tweaking. And yes bananas are mush.

I’ve made this two times. The first time I reduced the sugar in the pudding per a comment. I also topped the desert with a Swiss merengue put under the broiler to toast. It was delicious! Today, instead of caramelizing the bananas on the stove I used a sheet pan and the oven set to 400 degrees. It was so much easier. I also used just ripe enough bananas. They kept their shape beautifully. To serve I’ll try whipped cream this time.

Does anyone know what stage of ripeness the bananas should be for this recipe? I was planning on making this today but I’m concerned that my bananas may not be ripe enough—still a bit green at the stems. Thanks!

It's important to chill the custard before layering, either in an ice bath if you're pressed for time, or the refrigerator for a few hours if you aren't. Warm pudding will make the vanilla wafers too soggy. Then chill the whole thing overnight. The wafers will be perfectly softened, not soggy. Think of tiramisu.

Perfect recipe. Used one cup sugar . Could have elevated with bit of whiskey. But kept as written, came out well

First time making any pudding from scratch. I read another commenter who said the recipe was wrong to urge so much whisking, and I agree. But my real adjustment will be to make 1.5 to 2 times the amount of custard. Mine wouldn't cover completely as the recipe photo shows. Tastes good though!

Just made this for the first time and the instruction for the temperature to take the pudding to needs to be adjusted. It’s not detailed enough for someone making pudding/custard for the first time. Give me a temp to take it to please. I also find the pudding to be quite sweet

This is very good banana pudding. After following the recipe exactly I have to agree that it is super sweet. I think you could probably cut down to 1 or 1.5 cups of sugar in the pudding. Because everything is sweet and there is nothing to cut the sweetness it seems a bit overpowering. My boyfriend liked it but I couldn’t eat too much. Still stupid delicious and work the make but I would make it less sweet next time.

This was amazing! I want more of her recipes!!! My son said it was the best thing he he has ever tasted in his life! I am from New Orleans and this was a huge hit with my family!!!

Make that 1 cup sugar

Seeing people recommended cutting some or all the sugar, I used half the sugar in all parts. I was planning on using TJs vanilla wafers, but they discontinued them! Not wanting to go to another store, I got TJs almond biscotti cookies. It was a very good substitution ;) I also made a meringue topping, using step 8 from NYT cooking cranberry lemon meringue pie.

I used chocolate chip cookies in place of vanilla wafers. Very good change up.

Delicious! But this was a bit too rich for us. I cut the half and half with plain whole milk and liked it better. Call me a wimp! This was really pretty easy to make.

My bananas were ripe, but somehow turned out weirdly hard and chewy. Any ideas what I did wrong?

After reading many reviews saying this came out way too sweet, I decided to omit the white sugar entirely. The sugar is definitely not needed if you have very ripe bananas. The bananas also never caramelized in the butter mixture, they just turned to mush. I also would recommend chilling each part separately before combining into one dish as it all basically ran together instead of staying in separate layers and the nilla wafers became mush because of all the liquid. This recipe needs some help.