The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Banana Walnut Bread Pudding

KenK's picture
KenK

Banana Walnut Bread Pudding

Bread pudding is one of my favorite things.  Being a Southerner I am partial to bread pudding made with stale biscuits but I certainly enjoy others as well.  We had a real nice one not long ago at Ruth's Chris that I assume is made with their house bread.

Anyway, I was looking through the King Arthur catalog last night and noticed the banana flavoring and the idea for banana nut bread pudding came over me.  There is nothing new under the sun so I'm sure it has been thought of before.

Any ideas on how to proceed?

pmccool's picture
pmccool

Bread pudding made with banana nut bread--now there's a concept!  Sorry not to offer something concrete.  The only thing that comes to mind is that most banana breads are moister than the yeasted breads that are typically used in bread pudding, so you may have scale back on the liquids somewhat.  How about trying one of your favorite bread pudding recipes and reducing the liquids by, I dunno, maybe 10% in volume?

Let us know how it comes out.  It sounds like a winner of an idea.

Paul

browndog's picture
browndog

Sounds awesome. Maybe a puree of two or three bananas added to the milk and eggs along with some nutmeg and a scattering of chopped walnuts?

I bet regular banana bread would work, you could dry it out some in the oven for a while if you felt it was necessary, but stale ought to be good enough. Tipsy pudding works fine.

KenK's picture
KenK

I can't decide whether to incorporate the banana into the pudding itself or to make a Bananas Foster type sauce to spoon over it.  I made my biscuit tonight and wrote "the ripest banana" on the grocery list.  : )

browndog's picture
browndog

Oh, well, the solution to that problem is clear: you'll have to  make it twice!

KenK's picture
KenK

We made this over the weekend.  In the end, we put banana and walnuts in the pudding itself and made the banana walnut topping.

It was very good but sadly it did not taste as good on the tongue as it did in my imagination.

I think the nuts and raisins are a better combination.

browndog's picture
browndog

Was it not banana-y enough? Do you think it needed banana extract or extra sweetening? I would expect bananas alone to have done it, but you certainly would want that sweet, banana-y punch.

KenK's picture
KenK

I think the main problem was simply unrealistic expectations.  I had been dreaming of it for a week and had imagined it would be the most delicious desert ever before served in the history of mankind. : )

Plus, I made red thai curry for dinner that induced a near out of body experience.  I'm still a little logy.