- 1/3 cup flour
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups milk
- 2 Tablespoons oleo (margarine) also known as vegetable spread (brands include Imperial, Parkay, etc.)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 bananas
- 1 box Nilla Vanilla wafers
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in a 3-quart saucepan.
Break the eggs separately into the measuring cup to make sure you don’t have a bad egg. Break one egg into the cup; if you don’t notice a bad smell or unusual colors (free range eggs sometimes have a bit of blood in them, something to do with the rooster’s fertilization or beginning of a chick or something), dump the egg into the dry ingredients and break the other egg the same way. In 30+ years of cooking, I’ve only come across 3 or 4 bad eggs. Still, if you break a bad egg into your other ingredients, you have to throw everything away and start all over so better to be safe than sorry.
Add milk, little by little, making first a paste, then a thin liquid. Turn on the heat under the pot and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until thickened. Small lumps will form as you are cooking it, don’t worry, the lumps will gel together when the pudding cools. When pudding is thick enough for a bite-size clump to cling to the spoon, turn off heat and remove pot from cooking surface. Stir in oleo and vanilla. Allow to cool while you prepare the next steps. Line a large salad bowl with vanilla wafers (looks great in a glass bowl). Pour half of the pudding on top of these wafers. Slice one banana over the top of the pudding. With divide remaining vanilla wafers in half. Use one half on top of the banana slices. Pour most of the rest of the pudding on top of the vanilla wafers. Slice the second banana over the top of this layer of pudding. Any leftover pudding should be spread over the tops of the bananas. When you put warm pudding on both sides of the banana, the banana slices will keep for 24 hours before turning brown. If air can touch one side of the banana, it begins to turn dark on the first day. Place remaining vanilla wafers over pudding/banana slices. Serve warm or cold.
Microwave version
No time to stand over the stove stirring the pudding? Use your microwave oven. Mix your ingredients in a microwave-proof bowl that has a lid (steaming rather than open top cooking is important for microwaving puddings and pie fillings).
Stir together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, and salt). Add the eggs one at a time. Add the milk a little at a time, making first a paste and then a thin liquid. Reserve the vanilla and butter or oleo-margarine until cooking is complete.
Cook the milky liquid in the micro-wave safe bowl with the lid on for 3 minutes at one-half power.
To change the power setting on most microwaves, set the cook time then find the “Power” button and change the setting to 50% or half of the highest number – i.e. 5 if your microwave’s highest temperature is 9.
Carefully remove the pudding from the microwave and vent the steam by cracking the lid on the side that is farther from your face to avoid steam burning your nostrils when you start back from the heat. Stir the partially cooked pudding. Recover and heat again for 3 minutes, this time on 75% power. Repeat the venting and stirring. Recover and heat again for 3 minutes on high heat. Vent and stir. You should have a nice, thick pudding that holds its shape a little when you drop some from the spoon back into the bowl. If it is a little lumpy, that’s okay. If your pudding is still pretty thin, cook one more time on high for 2-3 minutes. If you are making a double batch, don’t increase the length of the cook times, just keep zapping it 3 minutes at a time until the full bowl is cooked. The longer your cook time (4 or 5 minutes instead of 3 minutes), the more likely you are to get big lumps of dough in a thin paste rather than a smooth pudding.
Continue the rest of the directions in the stove-top version above to make your layered pudding. (Cookies, pudding, banana, cookies, pudding, banana, pudding, cookies or however you prefer to layer it.)