A light and tender snack cake made with buttermilk and bananas.

Buttermilk Banana Snack Cake

I am not a baker. Y'all pretty much know that if you've been hanging around this blog any length of time.

I'm much more of a savory home cook and baking has just never been my thing so I don't bake much and really, you kind of have to bake regularly in order to build experience in it!

So funny though, but I broke all of the known rules of cake making with this snack cake, which is probably why I'm not much of a baker!

Spinach Smoothie Green Drink, Clean(er) Eating and the Year in Review

 

Clean(er) eating, the year in review and my favorite Spinach Smoothie Green Drink

Clean(er) Eating and the Year in Review

Don't worry... that "cleaner eating" thing doesn't mean we're changing our website and recipes, and I'll explain on down the post, but I do want to first say Happy New Year y'all!

I hope you got in your traditional Southern New Year foods by now - or whatever is customary where you live - and I truly wish you much health, wealth and happiness in 2016. Yes, this is my first post of the new year - mostly because, well... I've been spending time with my family, my grandkids, the animal kingdom, and my favorite 3-Rs... relaxing, resting and reading.

 

I took two great Southern classics, Frozen Strawberry Dessert and Strawberry Pretzel Salad, and combined elements of both to make this Frozen Strawberry Pretzel Salad, made with cream cheese, frozen strawberries, banana, pineapple and whipped topping on a salty, pretzel crust.

Frozen Strawberry Pretzel Salad

I know its officially fall on the calendar finally, and some of y'all in those areas of The South farther north from here are seeing cooler temperatures and thinking about soups and stews and pumpkin and apple and oatmeal recipes. Down in The Deep South, and most especially the coastal Deep South, summer is still roaring along. I'll sure be glad when I can give my A/C a little break, but for now it's blasting away, trying to keep things cool around here.

Peanut butter paired with chocolate and bananas makes a great pie for any day. Inspired by The Fat Elvis Pie at Hoosier Mama Pie Company - don't forget the milk!

Elvis Pie

Y'all, this pie is so easy to throw together that you could whip it up in the evening before bed and have a company-worthy dessert the next day. Here's how to make it.

Often called Banana Split Cake, this layered dessert has the same base ingredients from a banana split but in a convenient and well loved layered pan dessert.

Layered Banana Split Dessert

Take the elements of a banana split - bananas, pineapple, strawberries, whipped cream, chocolate syrup, maraschino cherries, and chopped nuts - layer that on top of a cookie crust, throw in a layer of that fabulous cream cheese, powdered sugar, whipped cream mixture as a stand-in for the usual ice cream, and you have one well loved Layered Banana Split Dessert.

 

Banana Pudding made with chopped Moon Pies and a decadent filling of cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla pudding.

Moon Pie Banana Pudding

Moon Pie Banana Pudding. No I haven't lost my mind!

Nor have I thrown my Homemade Custard Banana Pudding to the wayside either... but, let me just back up here for a second.

As I write this, New Year's Eve has passed recently with a dropping of a giant illuminated Moon Pie in Mobile, Alabama, and with Mardi Gras upon us, pretty soon they will be flying off of floats all over the Gulf Coast region.

The rest of you around the country are probably thinking "what the heck is she talkin' about?" Why, yes - Moon Pies! They are a well-loved southern icon, that's for sure.

Banana slices, layered in a cream cheese filling on a shortbread pie crust, covered in whipped topping, chopped pecans and chocolate sauce.

Banana Cream Cheese Pie with Shortbread Cookie Crust

I've had this Banana Pie on my mind for awhile, but just hadn't gotten around to making it. I wanted to produce a banana pie that was a little outside of the usual custard filling but with richer flavor than going with a pudding mix.

With bananas on the counter teetering on the edge of being overripe, and these fantastic Walkers cookies showing up, I decided to finally get around to making that banana pie and use some of these delightful cookies to make a shortbread crust. I decided to use the Shortbread Thins. Walkers cookies are available in the cookie section at most markets, including many Walmart food stores, but you could certainly substitute another commercial or homemade shortbread cookie, or purchase a commercial pie crust instead.

Homemade Southern Banana Pudding

Banana pudding, layered with vanilla wafer cookies, bananas, and a made from scratch egg custard, topped with a homemade meringue.

Homemade Banana Pudding

Woohoo, it's homemade banana pudding y'all! And let me tell you - while we southerners love our banana pudding, we really love it, homemade, from scratch, with real custard, layered and meringue topped. Now that's southern banana pudding - the way banana pudding was meant to be eaten y'all.

Yellow cake mix gets a boost of banana, brown sugar and cinnamon, and is topped with a quick caramel icing and chopped pecans.

Easy Banana Cake with Quick Caramel Icing

This cake came about when I saw a from scratch, two layer banana cake that was just gorgeous and looked so darned good with a yummy butter and cream cheese icing and dotted with chunks of walnuts. I even bought the bananas with the intent of making it, but for some reason every time I thought about making it, I would look at the recipe and put it off. It seemed a bit daunting to me and I'm not a great layer cake baker.

 

Layers of cream cheese filling, bananas and pudding in a vanilla wafer crust

Layered Banana Cream Pie Dessert

This Layered Banana Cream Pie Dessert starts with a quick baked vanilla wafer and pecan crust {though walnuts would be amazing here too} that is pressed into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Sliced bananas go over that, and then are topped with a bit of plain vanilla pudding, which sort of then seeps into the cracks and crevices between the bananas.

Banana Pudding Oatmeal

With this cold weather that has moved in, this morning was a perfect day to add to our series The Oatmeal Chronicles - or How to Make Your Oatmeal More Interesting.

Now since I gave up sweets and desserts for Lent, I did use only one crushed Nilla wafer on top and one to garnish for the sake of the photo, but I personally would recommend at least 3 to 7 crushed wafers for layering and the topping, plus the one whole one wafer for garnish (8 wafers is a serving size of the reduced fat wafers) as I've put in the recipe, in order to achieve the full 'banana pudding' effect.

I considered using some dry sugar free vanilla pudding powder, but decided on the protein powder in order to give the oatmeal a protein boost. I used a vanilla ice cream flavored whey protein powder because that is what I have in the pantry. If you don't happen to have protein powder, you might give the dry pudding a try. In keeping with the vanilla inspiration, I also used a vanilla Splenda Flavors for Coffee tube for sweetening, because, again, I happened to have some in my pantry. You could certainly exchange that for any sugar substitute, table sugar, stevia, honey, or your preferred sweetener.



Banana Pudding Oatmeal
Posted at http://deepsouthdish.com

3/4 cup of Quaker old fashioned oatmeal
Pinch of salt
1-1/2 cups of water
Scoop of vanilla protein powder
1 tube of French vanilla Splenda Flavors for Coffee
3 - 7 Nilla wafers, crushed
1 banana, sliced
1 Nilla wafer for garnish
Heavy cream to drizzle, optional

Combine the oatmeal, salt and water in a large microwave safe bowl, between 2 and 4 quarts to allow for expansion. Stir together well and microwave on high for 3 to 5 minutes, depending on your microwave, or until oatmeal is creamy.

Spoon half of the oatmeal into a serving dish. Top with 1/2 of the sliced bananas and 1/2 of the crushed Nilla wafers. Layer the remaining oatmeal on top, then the rest of the banana. Sprinkle with the rest of the crushed Nilla Wafers and garnish with one whole Nilla wafer. Drizzle with cream around the outside edges, if desired.

Banana Fritters - Bananas dipped in a cinnamon batter, skillet fried in butter, then rolled in a mixture of brown sugar and toasted coconut.

Pan Fried Banana Fritters

This works best with the fresher and more firm bananas just from the store, rather than the riper ones that have been on the counter for a few days. They are awesome served alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream, alone with just a simple drizzle of cream, couple sprinkles of pecan or walnut, or even as a side to some hot pancakes or waffles, and with an extra drizzle of cane syrup or honey. Just delicious!

Step by Step Tutorial for Homemade Southern Banana Pudding

A true southern classic, no event would be complete without somebody bringing a big bowl of banana pudding with homemade custard.

Homemade Southern Banana Pudding

Banana pudding is a mainstay here in the south. It shows up at just about every single event there is.

Homemade custard is not absolutely necessary but it really is a huge difference from the shortcut version, so I highly suggest that you give the custard a try. If you use a double boiler it makes easy work of it and it really doesn't take any longer than whipping up some instant pudding to be honest.

Yummy banana nut bread recipe that has just a touch of citrus from lemon juice and orange zest. Makes 2 loaves.

Yummy Banana Nut Bread

Over the holidays, I had intended to make a banana pudding dessert that I really love - it's one of those layered desserts, a bit of a take on banana pudding. With all the other holiday cooking though, I just never got to it and you know what that means of course. I had a bunch of overripe bananas on my hands. And we all know what we do when we have overripe bananas, right?

Banana Maple Bundt Cake with Walnut Praline Swirl

 

A homemade bundt cake made with bananas and maple with a swirl of nut praline in the center.

Banana Maple Bundt Cake

Today I needed to use up some overripe bananas. Though I made a few minor changes, this recipe originated from a now defunct website and was delish!

 Flavor-wise, it's basically a light and fluffy banana cake, but with an elegant twist!

Oh and how do you like that vintage 1970s Tupperware Cake Taker there?