Week 36: Real Banana Pudding Cupcakes

This week I've had a lot of time to think about which cupcake to make...we've been off all week! My dad was from Georgia and I always loved southern-style Banana Pudding the way my Grandma used to make it. I searched the web and my cupcake books for a recipe that incorporated the ingredients of Banana Pudding...vanilla wafers, vanilla pudding, bananas, and meringue...to no avail. I decided to try to create something like this all on my own. Yikes...pretty much up to now I have followed someone else's recipe to the letter. I put some more thought into how I could create this and here's what I came up with.

I decided to try making my own banana pudding as the basis for the cupcake filling. First, I made the cupcakes...lined cupcake pans with paper liners, and put one vanilla wafer in the bottom and one thin slice of a ripe banana on top of that. I decided that the batter should be vanilla and I used a recipe I found on Oprah's web site for because it made 18 cupcakes and I doubled it. (I always need at least 30 cupcakes for home and work.) I filled the cups 3/4 full and smoothed them over to make sure that there weren't any holes because of the wafer and banana. After they were baked, I let the cupcakes cool down and then I carefully cut off the top and cut out an area in the middle of the cupcake. Then, I tried not to eat all the pieces I cut out...but that was hard.

Then I scooped a spoonful of the pudding into the cavity in the cupcake. I used a knife to extend the pudding out over the top of the cupcake so that the top would stick back on and then would not move. I had made 36 cupcakes so while the filling of the cupcakes took a little while, I was watching a bowl game, so the time went quickly. The final touch was making the meringue to go on top of the cupcakes, and doing the torching (I love this part!). Everything went well and my taste-testers here at the house were delighted with the Banana Pudding Cupcake. It's like portable Banana Pudding!


Check out my flickr account for more photos of the stages: Banana Pudding Cupcakes Production