Out of 1,000 Recipes, This is My Cookbook Club’s All-Time Favorite
Plus, Mezcla is forced to close temporarily, and Wolf's Ridge Brewing adds pizza.
Out of 1,000 Recipes, This is My Cookbook Club’s All-Time Favorite
By Bethia Woolf
I have written here before about the Cookbook Club I have been part of for the past decade. We recently celebrated our 100th cookbook and 10th anniversary. Over the years, we have collectively cooked more than 1,000 recipes. Some cookbooks and dishes have stood out, and I mentioned several of them in the previous post. None, however, have reached the mythical status of “THE banana pudding.”
It is, by far, the most talked-about recipe we have ever made and remains a favorite years later. It made an appearance at our “Best of Cookbook Club” 10th anniversary party, and newer members, who had only heard the legend but never tasted it, quickly agreed that the dessert lived up to the hype.
The recipe comes from “Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes” by Ronni Lundy (pronounced “viddles”), winner of the James Beard Foundation Book of the Year Award and Best Book, American Cooking. We cooked from “Victuals” at Cookbook Club in July 2017.
I had never made the banana pudding myself, and I wanted to photograph it, so I decided to tackle it as a snow-day project. That involved stocking up on ingredients and, thankfully, snagging the last box of Nilla Wafers at the grocery store.
You may be wondering what makes a banana pudding memorable enough to still be discussed eight years later. Well, this is not your typical banana pudding.
In addition to vanilla wafers, it includes crumbled banana bread layered throughout. That banana bread is unusual in its own right, made with red miso and buckwheat flour. I would not recommend eating it on its own. It is salty and savory, but that is exactly the point. It acts as a perfect foil to the creamy, rich vanilla pudding, adding balance, depth of flavor and a level of sophistication most banana puddings lack.
The pudding has four components: crumbled banana bread, smashed vanilla wafers, sliced bananas, and a vanilla pudding made with a quart of heavy cream.
It is not a quick, 30-minute recipe. This is an ideal project for a snowy weekend, largely because it takes about eight hours to set. After making the vanilla pudding, you whisk it every 15 minutes for the first hour, then let it set for three hours. Once assembled, the pudding needs another four hours (or an overnight rest) to fully set and meld.
The recipe originally comes from a restaurant called The Shack in Staunton, Virginia, a historic city nestled in the Shenandoah Valley. I was happy to see the restaurant is still open, and maybe one day I will make it there to find out if any of their other dishes are as magical as the banana pudding.
In the cookbook, Lundy writes, “When [chef] Ian Boden set several small mason jars of his banana pudding in front of a group of us one night at his Staunton restaurant, The Shack, I picked up my spoon to have just one polite bite. It’s a mercy that after that first bite I didn’t convert that spoon into a weapon to fight everyone else at the table for every last jar. Luckily, Ian had a few more in the back.”
Note: If you are interested in starting a cookbook club of your own, The Columbus Foundation is hosting a workshop 5:30-7:00 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, and I will be there! To RSVP, please email kindness@columbusfoundation.org.
The Shack’s Sweet and Savory Banana Pudding
INGREDIENTS
Pudding:
4 egg yolks at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
4 cups heavy cream
1 packet (1/4 ounce) powdered gelatin
2 whole vanilla beans, halved lengthwise (or equivalent paste)
Banana Bread:
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus more for greasing the pan
2 overly ripe bananas
3 ounces red miso paste
1 large egg
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup buckwheat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Assembly:
1 cup crushed vanilla wafers
4 bananas, peeled and sliced
DIRECTIONS
Make the Pudding:
Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
Pour 1/4 cup of the cream into a small bowl.
Sprinkle the gelatin over the cream and stir with a fork until incorporated. Let sit for 5 minutes. Pour the remaining 3 3⁄4 cups cream into a saucepan and whisk in the gelatin-cream mixture. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla beans into the cream.
Heat over medium-low heat, bringing the cream to a point just under a simmer, whisking every so often to incorporate the gelatin.
Remove the pan from the heat and very slowly drizzle the cream into the egg mixture while whisking constantly.
Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer set over a clean bowl, and transfer it to a refrigerator to chill.
For the first hour, whisk the pudding every 15 minutes to incorporate any skin that forms on top. Then, cover the pudding with plastic wrap after the last whisk, pressing the wrap directly onto the surface.
Let chill for 3 hours. It will be about halfway set at that point.
Make the Banana Bread:
Preheat the oven to 300°F and lightly grease a 1-pound (8 1/2 × 4 1/2-inch) loaf pan with butter. Peel the bananas and place them in a blender along with the miso, egg, and brown sugar. Blend until the ingredients are combined and smooth.
Mix both flours and the baking soda together in a large bowl.
Gently stir the banana mixture into the flour until just incorporated, and then drizzle in the melted butter. Be careful not to overmix, as that would result in a less tender bread.
Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes. The bread is done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out moist but not wet.
Turn out on a rack and allow to cool completely. Use your hands to break into coarse crumbs.
Make the Banana Pudding:
In either individual mason jars or a single large baking dish, arrange alternating layers of pudding, bread crumbs, bananas and vanilla wafers, starting with pudding on the bottom and ending with wafers on the top. Be sure all the banana slices are completely covered by pudding to prevent browning.
Refrigerate, covered, for 4 hours or overnight before serving, so that the pudding can finish setting.
Reprinted from “Victuals”. Copyright © 2016 by Ronni Lundy. Photographs copyright © 2016 by Johnny Autry. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.
News & Happenings
Around the Columbus Food & Drink Scene
We’ve written here before about how impressed we’ve been with Mezcla since it opened last April. Unfortunately, the restaurant was forced to close this week after a van crashed into its entrance at 1022 Summit St. A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to assist Mezcla’s staff while the restaurant remains closed for repairs for several weeks.
According to local reports, Louisville-based Biscuit Belly is set to replace Hot Chicken Takeover at 1417 W. Fifth Ave. in Grandview. HCT closed the location last September, just before the company went belly up. This will be the first Biscuit Belly restaurant in Ohio. The breakfast-and-brunch chain has previously focused its expansion efforts in the South. Biscuit Belly specializes in biscuit sandwiches, biscuits and gravy, and other Southern breakfast items.
The city’s obsession with pizza continues unabated! Now, Wolf’s Ridge Brewing Co.(215 N. Fourth St.) has added pizza to its regular menu in both the main Downtown dining room and taproom. The WRB Pizza Kitchen will offer four main pizzas—including the Ludwig with mustard cream sauce, bratwurst and sauerkraut—baked in a stone hearth and featuring focaccia crust.