- [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- [Narrator] The following episode of "Charlotte Cooks" is brought to you by Central Piedmont Community College and viewers like you, thank you.

- Coming up on "Charlotte Cooks," we're taking a fresh look at banana pudding.

(upbeat music) Hi there and welcome to this edition of "Charlotte Cooks."

I'm really glad you're with us today.

We have a special edition in that we have an alumni with us, Deserie Kinker, who is a graduate from our program.

And she was not only just a graduate, but she was also our graduation speaker the year she graduated.

So we're really glad to have her back.

We're going to boast on you 'cause we think you're fantastic.

So what are you going to make for us today, Deserie?

- Banana pudding my way.

- Banana pudding your way.

- Yes.

- So what is your way?

- My way has shortbread instead of Nilla wafers.

I make pastry cream AKA pudding, caramelized bananas, and then whipped cream by hand.

- Okay, so how are we going to make the shortbread?

- We're gonna start with the butter, and then we're going to go ahead and knock in the brown sugar.

And then if I can get a pinch of salt.

I tried it without a pinch and it was a lot.

- There you go.

(laughing) - I know.

It's really amazing the little bit of difference salt makes in something as simple as a shortbread cookie.

- [Deserie] And then some vanilla.

- [Pamela] Now, what kind of vanilla is that?

Is that like a regular vanilla extract?

- [Deserie] This is a paste.

- Ah, vanilla paste.

- Yeah, I prefer paste.

It has a sweet taste to it and it's pretty thick.

And what I would normally do, I would use a hand mixer or my hands and just go ahead and get everything all mixed in together.

But today, we'll use a fork 'cause-- - Just to keep your hands clean.

- For now; I may end up getting my hands dirty.

Sometimes I don't because if the butter's already room temperature and I put my hands in-- - Everything gets incorporated really easy.

- Really easy and it'll get too warm.

And then when it bakes, the butter will-- - Runs out.

- [Deserie] And I'm actually not gonna get why I'm getting my hands dirty.

- [Pamela] When you put flour your in.

- [Deserie] I am.

- [Pamela] I bet you put your hands in there when you put your flour in.

- [Deserie] Yes, which I'm going to do.

- There you go.

You got it on your hands now.

You are committed.

Go for it, girl.

Go, go, go.

- I knew it was going to happen, but I also want to work really quickly 'cause I really don't want this butter melting all over my hands.

So I'm going to stop here 'cause what I don't want to do is I don't want a traditional-looking cookie dough where it's all like congealed together and smooth.

- [Pamela] You still want it to be a little lumpy?

- [Deserie] I do.

- So you're going to use just a regular kind of like a cake pan actually, right?

And this is a non-stick cake pan, so it'll be nice and we'll be able to pop that out really easy.

Now what temperature do we cook the shortbread in?

- [Deserie] 350.

- 350, for how long?

- It depends on the pan.

In this pan, it would be about 12 to 15 minutes.

And then I would check to make sure that the edges don't get too brown.

Well, the whole thing does get brown, but also using the local pastry flour.

It does have, it's already naturally brown, so you have to be really, really careful that it doesn't burn.

- Yes.

- So, if you smell it-- - Don't mistake the brownness from the flour for the brownness of being cooked.

- If you smell it, then it's probably done.

(laughs) (laughing) And so what I would do from here is I would just do a few pokes or docks and that'll keep it from puffing up too much, I think.

And then that's it, honestly.

It's super, super easy and it's not the prettiest looking thing, but it tastes delicious.

- Well, we're going to crumble it up.

- It is, yeah.

- So it doesn't really matter.

So let's put that in the oven.

- Yes.

(oven clanging) - Okay, so our pastry cream.

- Yes.

- So we have our cornstarch.

We have two measures of sugar.

So why do we have two measures of sugar?

- I go ahead and heat and milk and one part sugar together.

And then I'll go ahead and whip eggs and then sugar and then corn starch.

- Okay.

- And then temper in.

- Nice.

- And bring it together.

- Nice, all right, well, let's do it.

- And I would normally put the sugar in first, but I've learned to put the sugar in after.

- And why is that?

- It'll get stuck to the bottom and burn.

- Oh, there you go.

See, that's a good point.

So if you add it after you add your milk, it gets in there and starts dissolving rather than sitting on the bottom of the pot, adding your milk and you have something that's going to scorch and burn.

- I'll go ahead and just turn it on a lower heat because I don't want it to boil over.

So now we're going to do eggs.

I've used yolks and then a whole egg yolks.

I normally would just do yolks, but I've realized that there's nothing wrong with using a whole egg.

But for the richness sake, I normally would just do yolks.

I'm just going to go ahead and whisk the second part of sugar with the egg.

You don't want clumps of sugar.

- [Pamela] No, you don't want clumps of sugar.

- And just getting some air in there.

So now that I've got the second part of sugar with the egg, I'm going to go ahead and ... And if it doesn't all go in, it's really, I promise, not that big of a deal.

The big thing about cornstarch is it will clump up.

- [Pamela] It will-- - [Deserie] Because it's cold.

- Yes, you want to make sure there's no lumps and that's why you put it through the little sieve first.

You're just whisking it in there.

No heat.

- No heat.

No heat, definitely no heat.

And I start very slowly whisking cornstarch because it will ... - [Pamela] It thickens things up really fast, doesn't it?

- [Deserie] And would also fly all over your face.

- [Pamela] So now our milk is, it's not boiled.

- [Deserie] No.

- But it's good and hot.

It's warm to the touch.

Our sugar is melted in there.

Our eggs are whisked with the cornstarch.

- Yes.

- And more sugar.

- Yes.

- Cornstarch, sugar-- - And eggs.

- Eggs, milk and sugar.

Okay now, let's do the temper magic.

You need a ladle.

- Yes, at home, I would not use a ladle.

- At home, you would what?

Just pour it in?

- I would.

Well, because when I think about it, if I'm having to do this and then stop, there's a lot of stopping and starting.

And just for safety purposes, going to bring it over here.

Yeah, and then we'll move it back over.

So I'm gonna just use a little bit of ... (whisking) - [Pamela] Now this is what we were talking about as far as adding a hot liquid to the cold eggs so you don't get those scrambled eggs.

- [Deserie] Yeah.

- And so do it nice and slow and you don't have to do this the whole time.

You could do it about halfway and once that egg mixture is warm, you can add the rest of your milk to it and it won't scramble the eggs.

But like Deserie said, if you do happen to do it too quickly and your eggs do get scrambled, run them through a sieve, run them through a colander ... Not a colander, it's too big, but some kind of a wire mesh strainer that's going to strain those egg yolks, the cooked egg yolk lumps out so that we can actually be finished.

- I do not have cheese cloth at home regularly, but I do have a nice little, a few fine mesh strainers or sieves.

I have a little bit of both of them.

Now, I can feel on the sides of the bowl that it's warm and even at the bottom.

Normally with like the black bottom bowls, you can't feel it, but this is actually really good.

I can feel it, so ... - Then you just add the rest of it to the warm milk.

- [Deserie] Yes.

- And this is the point where you don't have to worry about those eggs scrambling anymore because it already got hot in the bowl and they're nicely incorporated.

And this is now where the cornstarch starts making its magic.

- Yes, I'm gonna turn the heat back on.

- I'll go ahead and take that from you.

- And I will probably switch between the whisk and then I'll start using the spatula.

- [Pamela] A spatula, just to keep it off the bottom.

- [Deserie] Yes.

- And so how long is this going to take?

- Just a few minutes.

- It doesn't take long, either.

You got the egg yolks and you've got the cornstarch in there and so that should thicken up pretty quickly.

- It should thicken up pretty quickly, but one thing that notice is it can change.

It can be very temperamental.

One day, it'll take two seconds when it goes in the pan.

The next day, I'll take five minutes.

So I've just learned to be very patient with it.

And then also wanting to remember, just keep it moving and don't give up on it.

- So it doesn't stick to the bottom.

And milk will burn to the bottom of the pot.

- It will.

- Big time, especially when you've got sugar in there.

- [Deserie] All right, so at this point, I could let it go cook longer 'cause the longer it cooks the thicker it gets.

- [Pamela] Right.

- [Deserie] And so I turned the heat off because you mentioned vanilla, vanilla and butter will go in after the heat's turned off.

- [Pamela] Okay.

- 'Cause alcohol, some vanillas have alcohol in them.

You don't want it to completely-- - True.

- Evaporate.

- [Pamela] We're going to add vanilla and butter.

- [Deserie] Don't forget the butter.

- Don't forget the butter.

So the butter gives it a nice rich finish.

- Yes, yes.

- A good mouth feel.

- Yeah, it's very sad to realize after I put it on a, yeah.

And then I pull it out and then add the butter in, melt it a little bit so it can get incorporated and yeah, it's sad.

And I'm not going to whisk the butter in 'cause-- - [Pamela] So you just use your spatula, just fold it in.

- And one of the big things about, I like using a spatula for in this sense is I can actually see the butter and if I'm whisking, I won't be able to see what's happening with the butter to make sure that it's all incorporated, yeah.

- 'Cause I don't want melted like a melted butter-- - Right, you don't want a pool of melted butter on top.

- No.

- Because then, when it cools down, you have hard butter on the top of it.

- Which is not a good time.

- [Pamela] And this is-- - [Deserie] Vanilla bean paste.

- Vanilla bean paste.

- I normally use extract.

It all depends on what I have.

I'm not gonna stress myself out.

If I don't have it, I don't have it.

So at this point, what I would normally do is go ahead and pop it into a pan that is thin, a very shallow pan.

- To cool it down.

- Cool it down and cover it with plastic.

- So do you want to just cover that with plastic?

- Yes, we don't want to have a film ... - Let's cover that with plastic.

So anytime you have anything that's been thickened with a flour, like it's a sauce or a pudding or anything like that, if you put a piece of cellophane or plastic wrap all the way down on the surface like this, when it cools down, it's going to keep it from forming a skin and we've all seen puddings and things that have formed that skin on them.

You just got to peel that off and you think, "Ooh, that's such a waste of ingredients."

- [Deserie] Yes.

- Is our shortbread done yet, do you think?

- I think it's definitely done.

- Okay, let's pull it out.

- [Deserie] Yes.

- [Pamela] Let's pull it out and take a look at it.

Ooh, nice and golden brown.

- Most definitely.

- [Pamela] It's warm.

- [Deserie] Yes.

- So now we need to cool it.

We'll do the bananas next, then we'll do the whipped cream and then we'll deal with the cookie and then we'll assemble.

- I'm excited.

- Is that good?

Okay.

- I've just started learning about sorghum and I have a lot more to learn.

It is very big in a lot of African cooking.

It also-- - Is it?

- Yes.

- I didn't realize that.

- Similar to a wheat berry and then it gets cooked and extracted a whole like cane-- - It's really quite fascinating the whole process of getting sorghum from-- - Yes.

- The plant to a process.

Once again, using medium heat, we are using whole butter.

So we just got to make sure we're not using super high heat, so it doesn't burn the butter.

So how are you going to cut the bananas?

- I try to cut on a bias, but sometimes it goes that way.

Sometimes it does not.

(laughing) It also depends on what knife I'm using.

When I'm at home with the butter knife, it's not going to happen.

It's just not going to happen, so.

This give myself some grace.

- [Pamela] And so you're cutting them thin too.

You're not cutting them really thick.

- I don't want them thick.

Cause again, this is more of a chill at home.

I'm not making a big pan of banana pudding, so ... - You have a date coming over.

- [Deserie] This is basically going to be like a date night thing.

(laughing) And now we're going to add the brown sugar just because.

- I can smell the bananas.

- [Deserie] And before the butter melts all the way, I'm actually going to go ahead and just put the bananas on top.

- So you're not going to be worried about the sugar lumps there?

- Nope, 'cause they will go away.

- [Pamela] Now, are you actually looking to seriously caramelize this sugar?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- And it doesn't take long because bananas already have sugar.

- A lot of sugar.

- What I don't do is I don't use overripened or ripe bananas.

I use them when they're just starting to ripen.

- [Pamela] The green tips you had.

- Green tips, yes.

So let me go ahead and check.

Starting to brown a little bit.

- [Pamela] So one thing you're looking for is a color on the other side?

- [Deserie] Just a little bit.

- [Pamela] Not a lot?

- [Deserie] 'Cause it's going to continue to cook on the other side.

So I don't want 'em to turn into mush.

So we're gonna flip 'em over now.

- [Pamela] Now what are you putting in your whipped cream that's different?

- Non-fat milk powder.

It's more dairy and it helps to stabilize it a bit.

- Okay, you got your powdered sugar in there.

So you said to actually, once these are all flipped ... - Yes, if you will go ahead and-- - Drizzle the sorghum.

- Drizzle the sorghum, yes.

- [Pamela] Do I turn the heat down?

- [Deserie] Nope.

- Ooh, look at this beautiful golden color.

Look at this.

(whisking) Now, in there, once again, you've got your cream.

You got your dry milk powder to stabilize it.

And what else?

- Vanilla bean paste.

- Vanilla bean paste.

- And ... - Is that it?

- Powdered sugar.

- And powdered sugar, okay.

- [Deserie] You can have whipped cream without powdered sugar.

However-- - [Pamela] Well, you can, but it's not the same.

- After a few minutes of whipping, it's going to, believe it or not, turn into cream.

- Turn into cream, whipped cream.

- Yes, and, but you don't want butter.

- You don't want butter and it does happen.

If you keep whipping that cream and you keep whipping that cream, It will turn into butter.

- I've made some really good butters.

- I've made some good butter, too.

So if it turns into butter say, "I intended to make butter "and then now I'll make whipped cream "and go get more cream."

- So I'm going to stop here.

I'm just going to go ahead and check.

I'm not even gonna look at the bananas because I know they're done.

- Oh yeah, they look done.

So now I wanna add cream on top.

- Now what does the cream do?

Just makes it more syrupy?

- Yeah, I want a, like caramel sauce.

- Oh, there you go, caramel sauce.

- And the color starts to change.

If you think it's not going to change, it's going to.

You just gotta be patient.

(pan scraping) And I'll normally just ... - How is it?

- That's good.

- Does it need anything?

- Pinch of salt.

- Got it.

There you go.

(pan scraping) - And then we'll let that cool off.

It'll thicken up a little bit just like a caramel.

There are a few ways to do this.

I can flip it out and take a chance.

Who knows?

But I'm going to use a spatula.

I did not grow up eating banana pudding.

I tasted it, but I didn't like it.

- [Pamela] Oh, really?

- And I felt weird being one of the only ones who didn't like banana pudding.

(laughing) And I couldn't figure out why.

As I got older, I realized it was the textures.

They're very similar.

The way that I normally do my banana pudding is I make a salted caramel.

I do fresh bananas, so I don't normally do caramelized bananas, but I've been trying out a lot different ways of doing it so it works out.

- [Pamela] Okay, so assemble.

- I'm gonna start off with some shortbread.

It doesn't need much.

This is a very, very, very rich dessert.

And then-- - Yes, it is.

- [Deserie] A couple of bananas, A little bit of the-- - [Pamela] Caramel sauce.

- Look at how nice and smooth that caramel sauce is.

That looks great.

- It's so good.

And you wouldn't think that you'd get a really good banana taste, but you really, really do.

- Yeah, you do.

So put some of your pastry cream on top.

- And then sometimes I'll use an ice cream.

It all depends.

I'll use Mason jars for this.

- [Pamela] Okay, yes, I've seen them in Mason jars, yes.

- Which again, you can use a scoop.

- [Pamela] You can use a pastry bag.

- You can make quenelles.

Whatever you want.

(laughs) If I were at home by myself, this is how I would do it, so.

I'm actually going to do a little more cookies or shortbread.

Now I want to get some of the crumbs now.

Got some of the bigger pieces on the bottom, so, and they're getting soaked up by the pastry cream and ... - Yes, they are.

- The bananas and the caramel.

And then I'll add a nice drizzle.

- Good.

- And of course, you can get at least a couple of bananas on top.

- [Pamela] So you could see you know that there's nanners in there.

- [Deserie] It's like proof.

It's like prove that it's here, otherwise it never happened.

- So we have this fabulous banana pudding, but we're going to show you one more dish.

We're going to show you how to make a really fast Bananas Foster and it's one of my favorites because it's flambe.

You're going to cut me a banana.

- Yes.

- We need ice cream, some brown sugar, some butter.

I'm going to use a little bit of whiskey because we want a flambe, so we're going to have a little show here and we're going to season it with a little bit of orange juice and a little bit of orange zest.

And as you've noticed, we've been salting things as we go.

So we're going to put a little bit of salt in there to go.

So we're going to heat our pan up and want to get it in there to where our butter is going to melt.

So we're going to put one of these really pretty little butter pats in there.

We're going to get this butter all nice and melted.

We're going to put a little bit of brown sugar in here to get this brown sugar caramelized in here too.

So we're just adding a little bit of orange juice and doing a little bit of a flambe on this.

Then that's about the only difference between what you've done.

- [Deserie] I love that sound.

- I do too.

I do too, cooking sugar.

You know what I can't stand though?

This is going to sound really strange.

Butter on toast and cinnamon.

(gasping) I can't stand it.

I can't stand it.

- I was afraid you were going to say that.

- [Pamela] No, I can't stand it.

- [Deserie] Why?

Why?

- All right, bananas.

Put the bananas in there for me, Ms. Deserie.

- That just hurt my whole heart.

(laughs) (laughing) - All right, so just like we did with yours, we're letting those get there.

We're gonna, got them all in there yet?

So that was a big banana.

(pan scraping) Okay.

Turn the heat down.

Gonna let that sit there for a minute.

And we do want them to get just a little bit of color on one side.

So once that happens, this color is also happening from the brown sugar that's caramelizing on the bottom of the pan.

- [Deserie] Oh, nice.

- [Pamela] Yeah, look at that.

And so now once we turn these, we're going to flambe.

It's a hot banana dish, hot bananas.

All right guys, flambe time.

Whenever you add alcohol, whether it's wine, sherry or some of the heavy duty stuff, always take your pan off the heat because you do not want the flame to go into the bottle and turn into a bomb and I have seen that happen before.

So that's why I always caution you.

Take it off the heat.

You're going to pour your alcohol into the back.

(sizzling) You can hear it.

Gonna get it warm and then you're going to take it to the front and ignite it.

There we go.

It should be light.

So then as it's lit, yeah, it's, it's lit.

You could see it.

- I love flambe.

- Ooh, look at that.

And so once this flambe is going, you want to let it go and you want to let that flame disappear because what's that's doing is it's burning off all that alcohol, okay?

And we put a little bit of alcohol in there, just a little bit, just to make sure that it's going to flambe.

And then you want to bring it back up to a nice boil.

Let that sugar get nice and caramelized.

- That looks so good.

- Doesn't it look good?

I'm going to add a little bit of orange juice.

Just a little bit.

Just, whoops, thinned that out.

Did I just burn this whole side of the pan?

- [Deserie] Oh no, you did good.

You caught that really quick.

- And then we're going to add a little bit of orange zest just to give it a little flash and a pinch of salt because salt will always make things taste better.

Just a pinch, not a lot.

Deserie, you got the ice cream ready?

Now, you can do this with rum.

It's wonderful with rum.

You can do brandy, which is my favorite.

- Oh, I'm so excited.

I know, really?

- I'm so excited.

- So now we want to make sure that we get this orange zest in there.

And once again you gotta be really careful about not overcooking your bananas because they will overcook pretty quickly.

Okay, you ready?

- Yes.

- All right.

So now, look, one for you and one for me.

We want to get this syrup.

- Oh, I love that.

- [Pamela] Pour it over the top here.

- It's like apple pie, but it's better because it's bananas.

- It's with bananas, yeah.

And if you wanted to, you can always take some fresh banana and put some fresh banana on there as well.

So here we have for you Deserie's modern contemporary twist on banana pudding.

We've got our caramelized bananas.

We have got a fabulous, fabulous pastry cream.

We have got a whipped cream and shortbread.

You saw how it was all made.

And then we've got our Bananas Foster.

So thank you for watching this episode of "Charlotte Cooks."

Catch us next time and well you never know what we're going to be doing next, but if you want our recipes, grab our recipes off of our website at pbscharlotte.org, or you can send me an email.

My email is Pamela, P-A-M-E-L-A, dot, Roberts, R-O-B-E-R-T-S at cpcc.edu.

And thanks for watching and we're going to eat this Bananas Foster.

- It's so good.

- We're going to let you guys enjoy the banana pudding and we'll catch you next time.

Thank you for watching.

Bye-bye, now.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.