 Nothing's better, nothing, than homemade. I guarantee you, if you try it, you will love it. Welcome to Colored Valley Cooks, and today I am making a homemade banana pudding. And I do banana pudding shortcut method in the microwave. It makes a beautiful pudding. It's still homemade, the same ingredients, and you don't have to worry about scorching on the stove. We're going to start with our eggs first. I'm going to use four eggs, and I'm going to save the egg whites for meringue for the top. These are at room temperature, so they're a little harder to deal with. And four egg yellows. Our yolks are in our bowl. Okay, we're going to put in two cups of milk, a cup of sugar, a cup of self-rising flour. Simple as that. I'll add the butter and vanilla later. This is just a simple recipe. I'm not making a real big batch. Sometimes I double it if I'm making something for a lot of people. We're going to put this in the microwave. We're going to microwave it three minutes, and then we're going to take it out and whisk it really well. While that's microwaving, we're going to start our meringue. This is the good part about using the microwave. You get to do your meringue at the same time. You're going to put your egg whites in the mixer. You're going to turn it on high. It's going to be loud, so I'm going to scrape it down. Make sure you beat this for a while so that your sugar melts good. The problem with your meringue weeping is because your sugar is not melting well, or it's too granulated. What you should do if you want to make a beautiful meringue, if you're not going to eat it immediately, use powdered sugar instead of granulated sugar, and you will have a much better stand-up meringue that will not weep. Our flour pop off the counter. Make our beautiful meringue all in the three minutes that it took. We're putting for the first three minutes. Now we may have to fluff that up again in a minute. We're going to mix it really well with a whisk. Make sure you use a whisk. Make sure you get to the bottom. If you don't, your pudding is going to be lumpy. But sometimes it only takes five. What we're going to do while we're waiting on that is we're going to slice our bananas real quick. Slice them down in your pudding if you want to. You can't just go ahead and peel them. It's easier to slice them into the pudding. We're just going to cut out the bad places. Because I've got some really ripe bananas. So don't use the bad brown parts. I've got a whole bag of them for $1.19 at Engels. I've already made banana muffins. Now I'm making banana pudding. I really ought to do a banana cake layer. My banana cake layer recipe is so good. You can freeze it. Since we've already had all this banana stuff. Or you can make banana bread and freeze it. We've got those ready. We've opened up a whole bag of vanilla wafers. I do use the vanilla wafer brand. I like it. Now what we're going to do is whisk it well. Five minutes in the microwave total. Now we're going to add some butter. Add some vanilla teaspoon. Or two. This is really thick. And it's really too thick. Because when you make banana pudding. If you get it too thick. It's immediately tonight right after supper. So it's still going to be kind of warm when we eat it. You want it to be about like this. So that when you pick it up. It just kind of flows into the thing. Now we're going to put a little bit of the pudding in the bottom. Of our dish. We're going to slice up these bananas really really thin. And you're just going to keep moving around the pan as you go. So that they get dropped in there evenly. And the thinner you slice them. The better your pudding is going to taste. Slice this in half and just show y'all. This is an option. For those of y'all that just get grossed out by bananas. You can take, this is a Good Lord Zester type thing. I don't even know what it's called. It's a peppered chef. But it's got teeth on it. And it's a circle. And it's the perfect size to take a banana. And pull out the seeds. Okay. If you get grossed out by bananas. My Granny Benefield did. My colored valley. Granny Benefield wanted me to do this. Because she couldn't stand for the bananas to turn brown. So you can actually pull out the bottom like that. If you want to. If you run into a bad spot. Just don't use it. Cut it off into the trash. Now I like to get a pretty good layer of banana. And then once I've got a pretty good layer of banana all over the pudding. Then I quit cutting them up. And to those who want to know if you can use Splenda. Make this recipe. Don't use the baking kind. But remember. That it's still going to be really high. On the calorie level. Diabetic because of the vanilla wafers. And the bananas are full of sugar. Etc. Etc. Now we're going to take the rest of our pudding. And pour it over the top. Gonna take a spatula. Spread it around good. Now when you make meringue. You got to make sure and cook it at least 20 minutes. Because it is raw eggs. So spread your meringue on the top. Make sure you get it on the edge. It's good. If you want higher meringue. If you want it to be real fancy and pretty. Just use more egg whites. Now I'm going to show you how to decorate it up. With a little spatula. Just use one of these tiny spatulas. I'll put a link on there. And just kind of curl it. Y'all can do this. Right here if you want to. Whatever you want to do it. I kind of like to curl it. Now I take the rest of my cookies. And put around the edges. Now you can't let them stick way up. If you do they'll burn on the top. So put them down in there pretty good. Put them in my bag. In my vanilla wafer bag. And there's always some crumbles. And I take them. And I sprinkle them on the top just to make it pretty. I bake this at 350 for 20 minutes until it's golden brown. That said. 50 degrees. 20 minutes. Do not under cook it because of the raw eggs. Now we're going to dip into this. Get a bite. So you want this to be soft. And juicy. You don't want it to be all dry. And it'll get dry if you don't put it up a little bit. Nothing's better. Than homemade banana pudding. If you make it in the microwave it's fast. Never scorches. Never burns. Always beautiful. Always glossy. Creamy. Gorgeous. Just put that butter in there afterwards. Gives it even more of a shine. And don't forget the dash of salt because it adds a lot to it. And thanks for watching Colored Valley Cooks Where We Cook Like Mama did.