Rich coconut pastry cream layered with banana slices, miso caramel and pandan cookies. # 328: Coconut Miso Banana Pudding

Banana pudding is yet another cousin in the trifle family, and probably hangs out with tiramisu at family reunions. If you want to dive into its rise to fame, this Serious Eats article walks you back in time to when bananas first started showing up in American grocery stores post-Civil War.

It’s traditionally made with layers of vanilla pudding, banana slices and crispy wafer cookies (looking at you, Nilla wafers), and topped with whipped cream. The wafer cookies absorb moisture from the pudding and take on a cake-like texture.

While a classic banana pudding is delicious, it’s also the perfect set up for swapping in other flavors. Chocolate wafers instead of vanilla? Why not! Coconut pastry cream in place of regular custard? Yes please! A layer of caramel? Bring it on.

While I skipped chocolate this time (shocking, I know), I got to play around with a new-to-me ingredient called pandan, and my favorite twist on salted caramel. Already dreaming about a banoffee version with chocolate cookies, coffee pastry cream and toffee sauce. I’m not drooling, you are.

Miso caramel is a throwback to my favorite milkshake at Shake Shake Shake in Tacoma, WA: miso butterscotch. A little salty and umami with a sweet hit of caramel-y goodness. It’s what butterbeer tastes like in my dreams.

I went on a little grocery store odyssey looking for pandan extract and had to pivot to getting fresh leaves when I struck out. The extract is surprisingly easy to make on your own! It’s actually more of a concentrated juice: you blitz the leaves with water, sieve out the pulp, let the juice sit overnight, and then pour off the separated water. You’re left with a fragrant, deep green sediment that smells like sweet popcorn or coconut rice to me.

Squish.

Loving this color.

The yummiest of science experiments.

Et voilà!

Excuse my late-night baking lighting. There are only so many sunny hours in a winter day.

Unintentionally transformed into a pastel with all the butter and flour, but I didn’t want to over-use a new flavor just for the sake of a deeper green.

Not as crisp as a wafer, but golden on the bottom and cute none-the-less.

Caramel time!

I used red miso, which has a bit more salty oomph than white miso.

The scariest bubble bath.

Ready to cool off in the fridge overnight. Sweet dreams, caramel!

Last but not least: coconut pastry cream.

Essentially the same as regular pastry cream but with coconut cream swapped out for the milk. Ta-da!

Snapped my fingers and now it’s daylight, and the pastry cream has whipped cream folded into it for a lighter texture. Cool trick, huh?

Layers on layers.

A caramel-capped mountain.

If you have any patience left, let it lounge in the fridge for a day to let the cookies soften. But if you dive right in with a spoon, I won’t judge. Your kitchen, your rules.

A pudding constellation.

Look at the cutest bookmark ever! My manager got it for me, and I’ve decided it’s now my official cookbook page marker. Might have to laminate it so it doesn’t collect actual buttery fingerprints…

Happy munching!

Cookie recipe, with pandan swapped for vanilla: https://iambaker.net/vanilla-wafers/

Coconut pastry cream recipe: https://sweetnspicyliving.com/2021/04/11/creamy-coconut-custard-pastry-cream/

Miso caramel recipe: https://www.chopstickchronicles.com/miso-caramel/#recipe