# Making banana pudding **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [February 28, 2025, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901 "2025-02-28T03:35:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/1 "2025-02-28T03:35:15Z")
Banana pudding is banana slices in vanilla pudding. What would happen if after cooking the pudding, I put the mashed bananas directly into it? ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/2 "2025-02-28T03:58:06Z")
What are you asking? Are you asking if it has a different name? Or if people will stone you for it? Or something else entirely? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/3 "2025-02-28T04:09:51Z")
Will it set? Will it bananaer? ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/4 "2025-02-28T04:18:40Z")
The banana will liquidfy(you know the brown mushy mess if you leave the pudding in the fridge with slices. Now it will be all thru out, yummy) causing your pudding to poop out. Dude…half the fun is getting a slice of banana in a bite. ---
**Author:** ![ParallelLines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/parallellines/32/3575_2.png) [@ParallelLines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParallelLines)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/5 "2025-02-28T04:46:44Z")
Personally (!) I prefer to pre-cook my banana slices prior to making my banana pudding (though I make it Banana’s Foster style, discs cooked hot and fast in a skillet with butter, dark rum, and brown sugar, with just a dusting of cinnamon). It’s a way to add extra flavor to the dish, and helps on the rare occasions that the bananas might add too much moisture. But I still find the whole Nilla wafers to somehow be the key in banana pudding even with the extra work I just mentioned! Otherwise I’m in @Beckdawrek’s camp, I like finding the distinct nugget of banana or wafer, rather than a mush or puree, even if it further distributes the flavor. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/6 "2025-02-28T05:07:24Z")
I make lots of banana pudding, because our banana stalks\* episodically produce insane profusions of bananas. I don’t use a pudding mix; I use Greek yogurt, plain gelatin, and whatever kind of local juice I have on hand (typically wild guava or jaboticaba). So maybe my results won’t apply. Having said that - from my experience, I would say that if you have a reasonable amount of bananas (say, 2-3 Cavendish per packet of vanilla pudding mix - my bananas are smaller so I use more) and your bananas are _quite_ well mashed, you’ll be fine. Your final pudding might be somewhat gloopier than plain vanilla pudding would be, but so what? (\*) Bananas don’t grow on trees, technically speaking. The plants are more accurately considered a grass. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/7 "2025-02-28T05:24:51Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > The plants are more accurately considered a grass. No, that’s not accurate at all. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/8 "2025-02-28T05:28:52Z")
Bananas mashed up take on a better flavor than sliced bananas. They’re almost like banana jam. Delicious on toast. I think adding mashed bananas to pudding sounds delicious. I hope it’s pudding made from scratch and not a mix, but either one should be good. ETA: you could always add a little extra starch or egg if you’re worried it’ll be too runny. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/9 "2025-02-28T06:28:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > that’s not accurate at all. Okay, fine - it has been decades since I worked for the College of Tropical Agriculture and Sciences (CTAS), which is where I learned that bananas are not trees. But some edification would be nice. [Here’s a cite that supports my statement.](https://knolllandscapedesign.com/banana-plants-simplicity-abundance/#:~:text=Bananas%20are%20the%20fastest%20growing,are%20in%20the%20grass%20family.) Happy to entertain contradictory citations; in fact AI told me bananas aren’t grass, but then … AI still sucks, so I’d like something more concrete, and suspect that if you are certain of your agricultural knowledge, you can provide it. My cite, a random pick from Uncle Google that is not necessarily definitive, says: > ## Banana plants grow incredibly fast > > Bananas are the fastest growing fruit tree you’ll find, but that’s mostly because they’re not actually a tree but technically a grass. It may be hard to believe by their appearance that banana plants are in the grass family. However, the extraordinary rate in which they grow and multiply is definitely reflective of this fact. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/10 "2025-02-28T06:58:33Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > bananas are not trees This is true. Lots of plants are not trees and yet are also not grass. > [@CairoCarol](#): > > [Here’s a cite that supports my statement.](https://knolllandscapedesign.com/banana-plants-simplicity-abundance/#:~:text=Bananas%20are%20the%20fastest%20growing,are%20in%20the%20grass%20family.) Your cite is just wrong. Bananas and grasses are not in the same family (bananas : [Musaceae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musaceae). grasses: [Poaceae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae) . They’re not even in the same order. Their commonality is that they’re both [commelinid monocots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commelinids). But then so are palm trees, gingers and bromeliads. And “they grow fast” is a terrible criterion for classifying a plant. By that measure, [giant kelp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrocystis#Growth) is the grassiest grass that ever grassed. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/11 "2025-02-28T07:07:43Z")
Are bananas herbs, from a classification standpoint? Because I think that’s where I may have misremembered. But miscellaneous Google searches are a terrible way to determine something, and that’s all I have at this point. I just know for sure that I learned at CTAS that everyone(\*) calls banana plants “trees”, only they aren’t trees, they are [insert correct noun here, which evidently is not “grass” and may or may not be “herb”]. \*defining “everyone” as “people not raised in tropical environments and not plant biologists,” which is obviously not _really_ everyone, but fits with the majority of people I knew for many years. More recently, many of the people I know were indeed raised in tropical environments, but perhaps we have not discussed banana cultivation very much. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/12 "2025-02-28T07:19:40Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > Are bananas herbs, from a classification standpoint? Yes, they are. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/13 "2025-02-28T07:27:33Z")
Thanks! That clears things up a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/14 "2025-02-28T15:32:43Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > . I hope it’s pudding made from scratch and not a mix, Of course. Homemade pudding is so good. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/15 "2025-02-28T19:01:57Z")
As much as I love it, the Nabisco version of BP is too hard to make: it’s actually a custard with nanas thrown in — the eggs are separated and the whites are whipped into meringue, which doesn’t grab me all that much. Too much like work. I use the Keebler elves version (with Nabisco wafers) and double everything except the vanilla pudding mix. The most important thing: the completed pudding has to sit in the fridge, covered (I love those shower cap thingies) for at least 24 hours before serving; the instructions say six hours is enough — those guys work in a tree, what do _they_ know. I like the wafers gooshy. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2025, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/16 "2025-02-28T20:29:54Z")
> [@ParallelLines](#): > > Personally (!) I prefer to pre-cook my banana slices prior to making my banana pudding (though I make it Banana’s Foster style, discs cooked hot and fast in a skillet with butter, dark rum, and brown sugar, with just a dusting of cinnamon). Yummmmmmmm. For the OP: you could consider pureeing a LITTLE of the bananas, especially if you do something like precooking them as described here, but I agree, the texture is a big part of it. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/17 "2025-03-01T00:58:05Z")
Fine if you plan on eating it all on the same day. But it won’t keep as long as the sliced ones. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/18 "2025-03-01T01:03:42Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > Fine if you plan on eating it all on the same day. Wait! Does anyone NOT do that? ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2025, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/making-banana-pudding/1014901/19 "2025-03-01T01:06:59Z")
Umm, me. I am not fond enough of bananas. I’m more of a French Silk girl.