July 2014 – Busy Lizzy Bakes

This Banana Caramel Pudding with Meringue Topping was delicious, and not too difficult. I decided to start making it at 9:30 last night, which meant that I was spooning on meringue topping at midnight. (But it was well worth staying up late for, and I’m a bit of a night owl anyway so I doubt anyone will be surprised that I spent a Saturday night making a fancy dessert.) Custard recipes always strike me as sounding a lot more difficult than they are, when really it’s not much more complicated than stirring hot milk. My caramel was basically bits of hard caramelized candy floating in cream, which was a surprising result. I decided to just go with it, and thankfully the solid bits of sugar gradually dissolved into the rest of the custard as it cooked.

If I decided to make this again, I would skip the meringue. It’s a great idea that didn’t hold up well in the fridge. I expected it to have a bit of crunch, but it turned very spongy overnight. Someone in the comments mentioned that they were excited to eat their puddings for breakfast, I don’t think I can emphasize how much I thought that was a great idea. (I have, on occasion, been known to replace proper meals with dessert, though rarely with breakfast. In this case though, I feel like I could make a strong argument that bananas, eggs and milk are already halfway to being a so called proper breakfast.) I tucked these away in the fridge around one, looking forward to a seeing how well they paired with a nice cup of coffee.