Baked Oatmeal

Folks-

I first made baked oatmeal over ten years ago, using a standard recipe from Allrecipes. It's a great morning breakfast cake or cereal if you're gluten free. I have found the recipe adapts very well to being lactose free as well. Both came in handy when I brought it to work for everyone to enjoy, as I have coworkers who are allergic to both lactose and gluten (no, really allergic, as in tested and everything, not "gluten adverse".)

Some people take a hunk of this, crumble it in a bowl, add milk and eat it like a cereal. I don't. I eat it like a crumbly cake because if I want a cereal made of oats I just skip a few steps and make oatmeal.

But you still have the option there if you want it.

The Allrecipes version of the recipe calls for dried cranberries, but I usually make it with blueberries, and peaches and strawberries have also come out quite good. I suspect I may make it with strawberries and banana chunks eventually just to try it.

Here's the Allrecipes Baked Oatmeal recipe with my notes.

Ingredients:

3 cups rolled oats (or old fashion oatmeal, or quick oats)

1 cup brown sugar or to taste

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (can add 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, cardamom, and/or allspice)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt, or to taste

2 large eggs (I have not tested a vegan substitute at this time)

1 cup milk (oat, almond, or soy milk also work, but I prefer oat milk for this)

1/2 cup melted butter (vegan butter or margarine both work)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (optional)

3/4 cup dried cranberries (or raisins, or currants, or 1 cup whole fresh or frozen blueberries, or raspberries, or sliced strawberries, or diced peaches, or diced mango, just try something. But if using fresh fruit, reduce milk to 3/4 cup.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Gather all ingredients. Mix together dry ingredients (except fruit). Beat in eggs and stir in wet ingredients and fruit. Spread evenly in a 9x13" baking pan and bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes. Serve warm.

Pie Crust Cinnamon Rolls

Folks-

I was just going through my old recipes, and noticed in my recipe for Bread Machine Cinnamon Rolls, I mentioned that I also make Pie Crust Cinnamon Rolls, and that I would post the recipe later.

Well, more than 10 years later, here it is.

A pie crust cinnamon roll is more like a coffee cake. I often make one along with a fruit pie out of the leftover pie crust dough for breakfast the next day. Unlike bread-dough cinnamon rolls, you don't slice this until after you've baked it. You also don't frost these. That would be gilding a lilly. They're pretty rich and filling on their own, so you don't want to add anything on them. Just slice the finished cinnamon roll into little cookies and serve with coffee!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 Tbsp ground Cinnamon 

1/4 to 1/2 cup softened butter

1/2 of a pie crust recipe like my mom's Foolproof Pie Crust

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Wisk together the sugar and cinnamon. Roll out the pie crust to about 4-6mm thickness (a bit less than 1/4"). Spread the softened butter evenly over the surface of the pie crust all the way to the edge. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the butter, trying to get it no more than 1mm thick. You don't want dry piles of cinnamon sugar. It should all be in contact with the butter all the way to the edge. Roll the pie crust up into a roll and lightly pinch the ends closed. Place in a baking dish/pie tin/casserole dish/jellyroll pan (something with sides) and bake at 350 F for about 20-40 minutes just until it's starting to turn a bit golden, or until the pie you're baking it with is done. This should be finished roughly at the same time as any pie you're making it with, and they make great "oven buddies."

Allow to cool until it's just warm to the touch or even room temperature before slicing. Slice into 1-2 cm disks, like cookies, and serve with coffee or tea.

Note: Do not slice before baking. The cinnamon sugar and butter will run out while it's baking and burn on the pan.

Ed's Baked Chili (Work in Progress)

 Folks-

I was struck with the idea of making a fairly different chili at work a few days ago, so I started with my dad's chili recipe, and just went to town with it. I know my dad will look at this and say "It's too complicated," and I don't care.

What makes it especially different is instead of simmering on the stovetop for hours, I decided to bake it in a Dutch Oven for even longer than his recipe. In addition, this one is more of a stew, with beef chunks and stewed vegetables.

This is very much a work in progress, but I didn't want to lose my place, so here's the current status.

Ingredients:

1 lb dry pinto or black beans

1 bay leaf

1 lb stew meat, or chopped up chuck roast or similar, fat left on

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 fresh Jalapeno pepper 

2 fresh chili peppers 

1/2 onion, chopped

1 cup diced carrots

1 cup diced celery

3 cloves garlic, crushed, or 1 teaspoon minced garlic

3 strips bacon

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

3 tablespoons Chili powder 

1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tablespoons ground cumin

1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric 

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

2 15 oz cans tomato sauce

Up to 8 cups water

1 cup diced yellow squash

1 cup chopped broccoli 

1 cup frozen corn

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

The night before: rinse and clean the beans, picking out any pebbles, then soak them for an hour with at least 2 inches of water covering them. Drain the beans, rinse them, then soak them overnight with at least an inch of water covered them.

The next day: drain and rinse the beans again, and soak them again for at least an hour. After the final soaking, drain and rinse the beans, then put them in a big pot covered with at least an inch of water, throw in the bay leaf, and bring them to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, and stir them every 15 minutes while doing all of the prep work for the rest of the recipe.

Set the broiler to 450-500 degrees and set the rack to the top position. Place the Chili peppers and jalapeno on a baking sheet and roast them just until black blisters from, about 5 minutes. Move the rack down low in the oven and reduce the temperature to 350 degrees in a baking mode to preheat the oven.

While the peppers are cooling, pat the stew meat dry and season it with the salt and pepper, then set aside. Chop the onion and crush the garlic and set aside. Measure out the seasonings and set aside. Chop the carrots and set aside. Chop the other vegetables and set aside. Chop the parsley and cilantro and set aside. Chop the peppers and set aside (remove seeds for a milder chili.)

Bring out the Dutch Oven, set it over a medium heat, and heat the vegetable oil. Just before it smokes, stir-fry the carrots until they just start to get a bit tender, then add the onion and stir-fry until it starts to turn glassy, and add the garlic until it becomes fragrant. Remove the stur-fried vegetables and set aside. Bring the heat under the Dutch oven to high, then when it just hits the smoke point, fry the bacon until crispy and the fat renders. Remove from the pot and immediately add the stew meat and brown it. 

By this time, drain the beans but save about 2 cups of the water.

Stir the seasonings into the stew meat, and add the reserved water from the beans, stirring to form a roux. Add the beans, two cans of tomato sauce, stir-fried vegetables, crumbled bacon, and just enough water to make it a little bit soupy. Cover the pot, and move it to the oven.

Check it at least every hour. At the 2 hour point, add the remaining vegetables and peppers, and return to the oven, baking for another hour before removing the cover of the Dutch Oven, and baking for another hour uncovered. Stir in half the fresh herbs and bake for another 30 minutes before removing from the oven.

Garnish with shredded cheese, sour cream, and the remaining fresh herbs.

Butter Pound Cake

Folks-

I saw both strawberries and pound cake in Costco today, and thought the combination sounded good, but I wasn't willing to pay $7 for strawberries and $8 for a pound cake when I was pretty sure I had the ingredients at home. I looked up a recipe on Allrecipes, and tried the suggestion in the comments to make it moister. Here's my version.

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened 

1 cup white sugar

3 tbsp packed brown sugar

1 tbsp vanilla extract 

1 tsp baking powder 

1/2 tsp salt

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour 

1 tbsp milk

4 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and line a 9x5 inch loaf pan with parchment paper. 

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter, sugars, vanilla, and salt until fluffy. 

Scrape down and mix in flour and baking powder. 

Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down between each, adding the milk with the second egg. 

Scrape batter into the loaf pan, roughly level it, and bake for 1 HR to 1 HR 15 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Let it cool in the pan for five minutes, then lift it out using the parchment paper and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Good topped with strawberries.

Notes: I may reduce the sugar and vanilla next time, or replace vanilla with rose water.

Apple Dumplings

Folks-

This year when we made our annual pilgrimage to Gizdich Ranch for the apple harvest, we discovered they now have apple dumplings in the pie shop. We got one for Aaron, and after trying a bite, we decided to try making them.

I found a recipe over at Allrecipes, and adapted it for our use.

This recipe requires a pie crust, and I recommend my mom's Fool Proof Pie Crust for it.

Here's my version of Apple Dumplings!

Ingredients:

1 14oz pie crust recipe or store bought, rolled out and cut into 6-8 equal squares

3-4 baking apples, Granny Smith or similar, peeled, cored, and cut in half

8 tablespoons (1/2 cup, or 1 stick) softened butter, divided

3/4 cup brown sugar (any darkness, your choice, or mix together 2/3 cup sugar and 1-2 tablespoons honey or maple sugar)

1 teaspoon cinnamon 

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg 

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice 

3 cups water (2 cups unfiltered apple juice and 1 cup water tested well)

2 cups white sugar (reduce to 1 to 1 1/4 cup if using apple juice)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat an oven to 375 degrees and butter a large baking pan or casserole dish.

Mix together 6 tbsp of the butter, brown sugar, and spices. Divide the mixture into 6-8 equal amounts and stuff it into the apple halves where the core was. Place a stuffed apple half into a square of pie crust core down, dust the apple with cinnamon, gather the corners of the pie crust and stretch over the apple and pinch them together to seal. Place the encrusted apples into the buttered baking dish. 

Combine the water and apple juice (if using), sugar, and last two tablespoons of butter in a saucepan and heat while stirring until the mixture begins to boil, then reduce the temperature to low and continue to stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla extract.

Carefully pour the syrup over the dumplings. Place the baking dish into the oven and bake until the dumplings are golden brown on top, about 45-65 minutes.

Easy Peach and Mango Cobbler

 Folks-

I wanted to try to sneak in at least one more recipe before the end of the year, and after my Peach and Mango Cobbler got the most comments at our Christmas dinner (how do you top grilled Emu steaks and grilled whole Lobster? Cobbler, I guess) the recipe to post was obvious.

Here's the recipe! 

Ingredients:

3/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon 

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup milk

1 15 oz can sliced or diced peaches in syrup 

1 15 oz can diced mangoes in syrup

1/3 cup butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit and place the butter in a deep 2 quart baking dish in the oven to melt. Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the milk to the dry ingredients and mix until a batter forms. Once the butter is melted, remove the baking dish from the oven and pour the batter evenly over the butter. Spoon the mangoes, peaches, and most of the syrup evenly over the batter, then bake for 35-45 minutes.

Beginner's Sourdough Bread

Folks-

I've been using this recipe for a standard sourdough boule since I started experimenting with sourdough starter. It is really easy, even if it takes roughly 20 hours from start to finish.

Since I'm not modifying this recipe, just including some notes in it, I normally would stick to the original recipe on Farmhouse on Boone, but, darn it!, that website has so many ads and active videos and other doodads that it becomes non-responsive on my tablet and forces a reload when I'm working on the recipe, which is not at all convenient. So I'm parking it here with my notes.

Please notice that I'm only using metric measurements for this recipe. Sourdough anything really benefits from using metric. If you want the volume imperial measurements, go to the original recipe.

Here it is!

Ingredients: 

475 grams all purpose flour

100 grams active and bubbly sourdough starter 

325 grams water

10 grams salt

Process: 

Night day 1: Feed a sourdough starter right before bed and leave it in a warm place overnight. I often take 100 g of discard and feed it 50 g each of flour and water before placing it in a warm cabinet, and feeding the mother starter the same amount before returning it to the refrigerator. That gives me some extra to make Foccacia the next day for dinner.

Morning day 2: By about 9:00 am, using a wooden spoon or your hands mix together all ingredients just until moistened, and allow to sit covered with plastic wrap for 30 minutes to allow the flour to hydrate. 

Stretch and fold: Wet your fingers and grab the dough by the back, stretch it up as much as you can without breaking it, and fold it over itself. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat 3 more times to complete one round. Recover it with the plastic wrap, let it sit in a warm space for 30 minutes, then repeat the stretch/fold/rest sequence two more times.

Bulk ferment/rise: Cover with a damp tea towel, a lid (loosely!), or plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size. This may take 4-12 hours depending on temperatures and overall activity of your sourdough starter.

Shape: Lightly flour a surface (I like to cover a counter with parchment paper first) then fold the dough over itself and roll it like a cinnamon roll. If you're making sourdough bowls, this is the time to divide the dough into thirds. Form into a boule ball by rotating the dough on the surface between your hands, and let it sit for 10-15 minutes uncovered. This prevents it from sticking to the tea towel later. Turn it over and shape by grabbing two opposite sides and pinching them together, then turn it 90 degrees and repeat once. This gives it a better spring. Place in a bowl or benneton lined with a lightly floured tea towel, seam side up, cover with plastic wrap or place in a plastic bag, and put in the refrigerator overnight.

Bake day 3: When you're ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven and Dutch oven at 500 degrees for one hour. Remove the dough from the fridge just before you want to put it in the oven. Place on a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, and using a sharp knife or lame, cut the expansion score(s). Place the hot Dutch oven on a heat resistant surface (I use a burner top) take the top off, and holding the corners of the parchment, lower the dough into the oven. Cover it and place in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove the lid of the Dutch oven, reduce the temperature to 475, and bake another 20 minutes until golden.

Notes: 1. To make sourdough bread bowls for chowders, chili, or stews, this recipe makes about 3 smaller boules of about 290 grams each before baking. I recommend using a cookie sheet and aluminum chafing dish to cover the loaves. Make sure to drizzle a fair amount of water on the parchment paper using this method, and you'll have to reduce the baking time to about 15/20 minutes, possibly less.

2. Do not grease the bowl to skip using a tea towel when you put the dough in the refrigerator. You can just flour the bowl instead, but if you grease, butter, or spray the bowl the crust will be softer and you won't get the clear expansion score.

Same-day Sourdough Foccacia

Folks-

I've been planning to make an overnight sourdough Foccacia recently, but haven't had the time to spare. Today I adapted a regular Foccacia recipe from Allrecipes to include sourdough starter discard to add flavor, and the family loved it!

I decorated the top using fresh Italian Parsley, Kalamata Olive slices, sliced grape tomatoes, and sliced garlic cloves to make flowers and a sprig of garlic wheat in the middle, which got a lot of attention from the family. I used the Parsley stems as the stems of the flowers, and chopped the unused leaves to make grass for them to root in.

The original recipe called for Parmesan and Mozzarella cheese to cover it. I chose Parmesan and Romano for the lower half, and sprinkled Nutritional Yeast on the upper half so my lactose intolerant middle child could enjoy it, and she really did (especially the garlic wheat sprig)!

Here's my variation of the Allrecipes Foccacia recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups + 2 tbsp all purpose flour (304g)

1 tbsp active dry yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dry oregano leaves

1 tsp dry thyme

1/2 tsp dry basil

A pinch black pepper 

3/4 cup water

3 tbsp olive oil

100 grams sourdough starter discard 

Cheeses to cover if wanted, or nutritional yeast 

Tomatoes/sliced garlic/Kalamata Olive slices/fresh parsley for decorating

Combine dry ingredients. Add water, olive oil, and sourdough starter discard, then mix until dough comes together. Turn out on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Turn into an oiled bowl and cover with a damp towel to rise in a warm room until doubled, 20 minutes to an hour. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit. Turn the dough onto a greased cooking sheet and press the dough into a rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Brush top with olive oil, then cover with cheese or nutritional yeast, then decorate. Bake for 12-20 minutes until the edges are just showing color.

Note: You can make this without the sourdough starter discard by using 2 3/4 cup flour and 1 cup water instead. No other changes are necessary to the recipe.

Ed's Overnight Sourdough Waffles or Pancakes

Folks-

Waffle is kind of a fun word, isn't it? Waffle. 

In any case, I've been looking for a good, crisp, tasty waffle recipe for years without success. They always come out limp from my highly-rated Belgian waffle iron. So I finally started to look up what made a waffle crisp, which appears to be vegetable oil in the batter, eggs, and baking soda. Then, after working with the Sourdough Crumpet recipe, I decided it was time to make my own waffle recipe from the beginning. Waffle,

This is not a waffle recipe I waffled together from someone else's waffle recipe; I waffled this one together on my own. Waffle!

The cool thing is this recipe was rather easily adapted to pancakes. I'll include the modifications in the notes.

Waffle.

Ingredients: 

100g Sourdough Starter Discard

310g All-purpose flour

250g water

3 eggs, beaten

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

3 tbsp sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil

The night before mix together sourdough starter discard, flour, and water and set on the counter loosely covered to ferment 8-12 hours until active and bubbly. Do not over mix. Batter should be lumpy. The next morning start heating the waffle iron, then mix together the remaining dry ingredients, and beat the eggs. Add the oil to the eggs and give a quick whisk. Fold the egg mixture and dry ingredients into the sourdough leavening and allow to sit for a couple of minutes for the baking powder and baking soda to activate. Bake in your waffle iron per manufacturer directions.

Notes: You can serve these immediately from the waffle iron, or if you want to have a sit-down breakfast with everyone at once, heat the oven to about 200-300 degrees, turn it off, and then place the finished waffles directly on the oven rack or a cooling rack placed in the oven. Do not stack them on top of each other or they become soggy.

To convert this to a pancake recipe, use 2 eggs instead of 3, 2 tbsp of sugar instead of 3, and 3 tbsp of melted butter (cooled to just liquid) instead of 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Everything else is the same.

Waffle.

Overnight Sourdough Waffles

Folks-

I'm a couple of years late to the sourdough scene, but I've been experimenting with it the last couple of months. I started with the King Arthur Sourdough Starter recipe, which took a couple of weeks to really get going, but now that it is, I'm having fun with it.

I found a recipe on The Pantry Mama that I was able to modify to my needs, and they came out better than a couple of other recipes. These have an actual sour flavor, so that's a good thing.

Without further ado, here's my version:

Ingredients:

Night before:

100g sourdough starter, fed & bubbly (fed that morning)

360g whole milk

400g all purpose flour

100g sugar

Day of:

30g sugar

100g (about 1 stick) melted butter (cooled until it's just melted)

4 large eggs, beaten

24g baking powder (about 4 tsp)

10g salt (about 1 tsp)

20g sugar

The night before: mix together sourdough starter, whole milk, flour, and sugar. Cover with plastic wrap and leave on the counter overnight, or 12-15 hours.

The next morning, mix together the sugar, baking powder, and salt, and beat together the eggs and melted butter. Whisk ingredients into the batter from the night before, and allow to sit while heating the waffle iron. Use nonstick spray or a high smoke-point oil on the waffle iron, not butter, if you want crispy waffles. Makes about 8-10 waffles in a Belgian waffle iron.

Note: You can use discard if you haven't thought ahead, but fed starter works just a smidge better.

This recipe is easily halved.

Baklava

 Folks-

This is really a work in progress, so I don't yet consider it complete. I created this by cobbling it together from several other recipes.

Ingredients:

Honey Syrup:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp rose water (or orange extract, or 1 tsp vanilla extract)
• 10 black peppercorns (or 5 whole cloves)

Nut Filling:

• 8 oz shelled raw pistachios
• 8 oz raw walnuts (or almonds, or pecans)
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 Tsp salt

Pastry and Butter:

• 2-3 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 lb frozen phyllo dough, thawed

To make the honey syrup:

Combine all ingredients except rose water in a saucepan, bring to a boil over medium heat, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. Allow to cool to room temperature before discarding peppercorns and stirring in the rosewater or other flavoring.

To make the nut filling:

Pulse the nuts together in a food processor until very finely chopped. Set aside about 1 tbsp before you add in sugar, salt, and ground cardamom and pulse together to combine.

To assemble and bake:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Brush a 9x13 inch pan with butter then layer a half-sheet of Phyllo in the bottom and brush with butter, layering 6- 10 more half sheets on top, brushing each with butter. Layer 1/3 of the nut filling on top, and place a half-sheet of Phyllo on the filling, and dab with butter (brushing will slide it off.) Layer 6-10 more half sheets, another 1/3 of the filling, another 7-10 sheets of dough & butter, the rest of the filling, the rest of the dough and butter. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough and filling into squares or diamonds. Place in the oven for 45 minutes, turn it 180 degrees, and bake another 45 minutes or until golden in color. Remove from the oven to a cooling rack then immediately pour the honey syrup through the cuts, leaving the last couple of tablespoons to cover the top of the baklava. Decorate the tops with the saved nut mixture.

Allow to cool for at least three hours, than wrap in aluminum foil and allow to sit for 12 hours before serving.

Notes: Aaron strongly recommends sitting down while assembling the baklava in the baking dish. It takes quite a while with all of the layering, dabbing, and covering with nut filling, and, yeah, I wish I had done it sitting at the table that first time.

Also, this is much better the day after it's baked. Like, a lot. I strongly recommend fixing it a day ahead if you have a party or gathering planned.

And this recipe is great for sharing. One full recipe is too much for my family of six to finish in a reasonable amount of time.

Aaron's Banana Cream Pie

My youngest, Aaron, cobbled this recipe together from 3 other recipes that he found on the interwebs one day while he was hungry in class. He came home and made it for us. Cynthia, his older sister, cried when she took her first bite because it tasted so good. I made it for my coworkers and got a very consistent response, which was (paraphrased) "This is great! When can I have the recipe?"

Well, this is it. The crust is from The Spruce Eats, the filling is from Allrecipes, and the whipped topping is from my French Silk Pie recipe.

Here are the crust and filling recipes. I don't recommend making the topping until the crust has been filled and it has cooled, so once you're at that point, head over to that recipe.

Vanilla Wafer Cookie Crust Ingredients

1 1/2 cups fine vanilla wafer cookie crumbs (about 30-35 cookies worth)

2 tbsp granulated sugar (vanilla sugar is good here, but regular is just fine)

5 tbsp softened unsalted butter

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Add vanilla wafer cookies and sugar to a food processor an pulse until crumbs are fine (about the same as commercial bread crumbs.) Add the butter and pulse until combined. Turn out crumb mixture into a 9" pie tin and press into the bottom and sides of the dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes and cool completely before filling (it should be cool by the time the filling is done).

Banana Cream Pie Filling Ingredients

3/4 cup white sugar

1/3 cup all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups milk

3 egg yolks, beaten

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract (don't substitute vanilla sugar-it doesn't work)

Up to 4 bananas, sliced (enough to cover the bottom of the pie crust)

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (if not already hot.) Cover the bottom of the pie crust with banana slices. Place egg yolks in a small heat resistant bowl and beat them thoroughly.

Combine the dry ingredients in a medium saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, cook over medium-low heat until it boils and begins to thicken, then let it simmer for two more minutes while stirring constantly. I mean stirring constantly! This stuff desperately wants to burn to the pan and ruin itself. Do not stop stirring thoroughly while it's on the heat!

Remove the milk mixture from the heat and whisk about 3 tablespoons into the beaten egg yolks, then whisk the egg mixture into the milk mixture. Return to heat for two more minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat and mix in vanilla and butter.

Pour over banana slices and level the pudding in the pie pan. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 1 hour before topping with a whipped topping.

It's quite good if you sprinkle toasted almond slices or some toasted reserved cookie crumbs over the whipped topping.

I intend to try making the filling in the top of a double-boiler just to see if it's easier. I'll update this recipe later with the results.