- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on Preppy Kitchen,
we're making a tipsy caramelized banana pudding
from my new book.
So let's get started.
First off, we're separating six eggs.
We want the yolks for this,
so save the whites for a meringue
or for a delicious Swiss or Italian buttercream.
Mm.
Ah, six egg yolks right in there.
This needs one tablespoon of vanilla.
I'm using my homemade batch.
But a nice vanilla extract
is gonna do some wonders for this.
Whisk away.
We're just gonna break the yolks up.
Work the vanilla in.
And this gets set aside.
Now we're gonna make a steamy hot milk mixture.
And that's the basis of our pudding.
Pudding is so easy to make.
You don't need that little pudding package.
And when you make it from scratch,
it's a million times better.
I've whipped my scale out.
And now into a medium pot.
And hopefully it's a nice thick walled pot.
You don't wanna scorch anything here.
We're gonna add in 250 grams
or one and a quarter cup of granulated sugar.
One quarter cup or 28 grams of corn starch.
This is our thickening agent,
so you wanna add just enough
to give you a nice thicker consistency,
but not so much that it seems rubbery.
So careful with the corn starch.
And also a half teaspoon of salt.
You know, salt and caramel go hand in hand,
so you don't wanna be too stingy with it.
My scale is done.
Thank you.
We're gonna give this a whisk.
The whisking is just to distribute the corn starch really.
It can clump up if you added it in with liquid,
so we're mixing it with the sugar and the sugar
is like big granules and it breaks the corn starch apart.
Pow, pow, pow.
Now I need four cups of whole milk.
This is two cups, I'm gonna do two batches.
And whisk in while you pour slowly.
This is just so you have a nice smooth mixture
with no lumps.
We're gonna take this over heat now.
The milk needs to get nice and hot,
so it's gonna activate all the corn starch.
So you can see that I'm using a narrow whisk today.
This is sometimes called a French whisk,
as opposed to a balloon whisk.
And the reason is that because it's narrow,
it can really reach that corner of the pot,
and you won't have as much burnt
or scalded milk in the very bottom.
And while I whisk,
let me just have a word about the bananas.
You want your bananas to be like perfect eating bananas.
So not too hard, not too ripe.
But you want one very ripe banana.
So you might have one very ripe banana
hanging out in your kitchen,
but if you don't, like I didn't,
just peel one off,
pop it into the oven at 350 on a baking sheet,
and bake it for about 10 minutes.
That'll soften it up, so it's very mashable,
and has that like baking banana consistency.
Mine's in the oven right now.
It's gonna come out in just a second.
(wondrous music)
You'll see a lot of froth hanging out on top,
but the thickening is gonna happen on the lower part,
closer to the heat.
One of the reasons why we really wanna be pretty thorough
with our whisking.
This seemingly humble banana pudding
is actually one of my favorite recipes from my new book,
which you can pre-order today.
There's links in the description box below.
And the book isn't just all the baking recipes
that you might expect from me.
I have so many amazing, delicious savory recipes too.
And I arranged the book by the seasons,
so that whenever you're cooking,
you're really capturing the essence of the season.
When it's cold outside and I'm like nesting indoors,
the oven's on,
something's bubbling away with lots of spices.
But in the spring or summer,
I'm probably out and about and taking advantage
of all the fresh fruit and produce
for light wonderful flavors.
I hope you grab a copy today.
There's links in the description box below.
And now, it's time to get back to the recipe.
This is starting to thicken.
I want you to take a look,
but the funny thing is it looks the same.
I know it's thickening because of the way the whisk feels,
so it's dragging more through the thicker liquid.
And that's telling me, ooh, that was so close.
It's telling me that I need to keep a careful eye on the pot
because it can bubble over really easily.
(John laughs)
You almost got me on that one.
And let me tell you, nobody likes burning milk.
Okay.
If it starts to bubble up, take it off heat for a second,
and whisk your little heart out.
Oof.
I should've used my bigger pot.
Now it's actually starting to get to that thickened stage,
where we get the burpy bubbles.
So they're larger bubbles burping their way through.
Take it off heat.
And now we're gonna do some tempering magic.
We are gonna grab two cups of the hot mixture.
All right, now I'm gonna slowly drizzle in the hot milk,
while I vigorously whisk the yolks.
This is tempering the mixture,
so it's gonna warm the egg yolks up and dilute them enough
that they won't get scrambled,
and you'll have a beautiful, silky consistency.
This stage is usually annoying for me when I shoot anything
for the blog because I'm trying to whisk,
pour and take a photo at the same time and it's not easy.
You need two hands.
So the corn starch is doing some of the job.
And the egg yolks are gonna do the rest of the job
for thickening.
If we just used corn starch, it'd be sad.
The egg yolks are so rich, they add a depth of flavor,
and they're a wonderful natural thickening agent.
Now I'm gonna whisk my tempered mixture
back into the pudding.
Whisk, whisk, whisk.
Now that the egg yolks, corn starch and milk are combined,
we're gonna take this back over medium heat
and whisk constantly, but gently,
not too vigorously for three to five minutes,
until it's thickened and you see a trace left in.
I'll show you what that looks like.
So it's starting to bubble around the edge now
and I just wanna see that the whisk can leave a trace.
We're getting close.
If it bubbles a little bit too vigorously,
you can decrease the heat,
so the rest of the mixture can catch up.
You'll see a magical change though,
where it just snaps and changes consistency.
Okay, so here it's thickened up.
This is where we're at right now,
so it's gonna coat the back of a wooden spoon.
The butter we're gonna add in a minute
is gonna thicken everything up even more.
Our pudding thickened up.
Right now we're gonna add in three tablespoons
of bourbon or whiskey.
This goes a long way in flavor, so you're going to love it.
Give that a good whisk.
This smells so good.
The vanilla added some flavor to the pudding,
but this is like a cherry on top.
It's so good.
Now we're adding in a quarter cup of cold butter.
I'm just gonna cut it into smaller pieces and mix it in.
The butter's gonna do three things.
It'll help thicken the pudding,
add a beautiful richness, as well as a nice depth of flavor.
Mix the butter in until it's all melted.
And then it's time to set this aside.
I'm pouring this into a bowl to help cool things.
And if you wanna prevent a skin from forming,
just cover the top either with some parchment paper
or you could use a piece of plastic as well.
This should cool for at least an hour.
You could make this a day or two ahead of time,
if you wanna assemble the dessert later.
Our pudding's cooling,
so now let's make that amazing banana caramel.
I just washed the same pot out and I'm gonna use it again.
Two cups or 400 grams of granulated sugar goes right in.
Scales have a delay, so you can't pour too fast.
A lesson I will learn one day.
Scale's done.
I'm adding one cup of water in right now.
Try and get all that sugar nice and damp.
Now we're gonna place this over medium high heat.
We're gonna let our sugar solution come to a boil
and then just cook on its own for 20 minutes
or until it's a light amber color.
Don't touch it.
So do not stir it.
That could cause crystals to form.
At most, you can use a wet pastry brush
to carefully brush the side of the pan
and just wash away any sugar that made its way up
and is gonna start to burn.
While we wait, let's grab that banana and mash it up.
So in a pinch you could use a ripe eating banana
to flavor the caramel,
however you want it to be totally gooey,
so that there's no lumps.
It needs like infused banana flavor throughout,
but still have that nice silky texture.
So 10 minutes in the oven at 350 like I showed you
gives you a pudding like consistency for your banana.
Pop that into a little bowl.
And you can either mash it up with a potato masher
or just the back of a fork.
You've got a couple minutes
because this is cooking until it comes to that amber color.
Okay, just giving this a nice mash so there's no lumps.
That's a delightful like essence
of banana coming out of there.
Lumps are pretty much gone.
Let's check on that sugar.
You can see it's taking on a very light amber color.
It's got a ways to go.
Just do not stir.
It needs to bubble away on its own.
Okay, my sugar has a nice light amber color.
You'll hear the difference too.
The bubbles sound a little bit different
and they get bigger as it gets thicker.
Time to add our mashed banana in.
Waiting for it to explode for some reason.
I don't know why.
And we're also gonna add in a quarter cup of bourbon.
You could use a whiskey that you love as well.
Whiskey and caramel and salt and bananas are magic together.
Whisk away.
It's gonna bubble vigorously.
You'll see some steam.
It'll be the best facial you ever had.
And the nice thing is that that extreme heat
from the caramel is cooking the banana a bit
and caramelizing it even more.
Don't forget a quarter teaspoon of salt.
The salt will be so nice with the sugar.
Now we're gonna return this to medium heat,
whisking constantly for three to five minutes.
And here's the deal.
The banana cooled everything down so much,
we're gonna bring this back up into the soft ball territory,
where you get that nice silky caramel,
which is 230 to 235.
It'll be like a deep golden color though.
Making caramel is always easier,
if you use a thermometer, just by the way.
Just putting that out there.
Also, never use a non-stick pan for caramel.
They don't mix.
This smells so good.
You gotta smell this.
It's so good.
This is just about there.
So I'm gonna reduce the heat to low.
And we're gonna carefully whisk in three quarters of a cup
of cream that's not cold.
It's pretty room temp.
This can bubble up and explode if you're not careful though.
So be careful.
The bad things can happen if the cream's cold.
So I'm whisking the cream in.
It just adds so much richness and gives you
that wonderful just like, ah, caramel amazingness.
It's like adding butter into a creme pat or a curd.
Whisk it in until the cream's totally incorporated
and you see the bubbles subside a bit.
And now we're gonna take this off heat.
This gets to cool down in a heatproof bowl.
Now we want five bananas.
We're gonna slice them into quarter inch rounds.
If you wanted to, you could've done this step
while the sugar was bubbling away, but I don't know.
I don't love banana slices sitting around,
just 'cause of the oxidation,
even though it's going into a caramel
and you probably wouldn't notice anyways.
As we go, we'll toss those into our caramel.
The bananas are doing a couple things here.
One, they're gonna flavor the caramel.
But right now, they're also cooling it down,
so you can assemble more quickly.
The caramel should be just warm to the touch
when you assemble it,
so you might have to set it aside for anywhere
from five to 20 minutes,
depending on how warm it is
and your countertop and everything else.
While our custard cools,
we're gonna grab our Biscoff cookies,
whip some cream up, get the cups,
so we're all ready to assemble.
For the cream, you just want one cup of cold cream.
Two tablespoons or so of sugar.
It's up to you.
You can add a little vanilla or bourbon if you want.
(upbeat music)
Okay.
Finish it off by hand.
Grab your glasses and it's time to assemble.
Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for this.
Into the glass,
you're gonna add about a third of a cup of your custard.
This looks really nice if you can see defined stripes.
So just try and be neat.
And whatever size your glass is, you want like that much.
Now about a quarter cup of my banana caramel.
Trying to get some bananas poking out to the side.
And yes, you can make these ahead of time of course,
and keep them chilled in the fridge for a bit.
And they are so good on a warm day.
But really I make these like any time of the year
because it's one of my new favorite desserts.
On top of my caramel,
I'm adding two crumbled Biscoff cookies.
It gives you a wonderful crunch
and they have like a nice almost gingerbread-y flavor.
You get the crunch and the creamy
with a little bit of that banana texture.
Ah, it's so good.
Repeat that with more custard, more caramel, more cookies.
It's making a really beautiful layer.
I'm finishing this off with little dollops of whipped cream.
Do a fun pattern.
Add a little cookie on top.
And a banana slice with a few beautiful crumbs.
And just like that,
your tipsy banana pudding is ready to serve.
You're gonna love this, but I'm gonna love it first.
I've been dreaming about this bite.
I'm so happy I got to share this recipe
from the book with you.
The salted caramel with the bourbon and those bananas in it
with the pudding and the whipped cream and the cookies.
Oh my gosh, I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video, check out my custard playlist.
Order the book.