I’m a firm believer that most Texans always have extra stomach space for banana pudding, no matter how much barbecue they’ve eaten. A good banana pudding is a perfect balance of cool and creamy, and achieving it is about getting the ratios of the ingredients right.
But why should bananas get to have all the fun? What if we traded them out for that ultra-Texan stone fruit, the peach? This summer, consider using your U-Pick haul for a cool, creamy peach pudding.
Swapping the fruit provided an opportunity to exchange another ingredient: the cookies. I tried traditional Nilla wafers, gingersnaps, and Biscoff cookies. The Nilla wafers had the best texture, so they’re an option here, but the gingersnaps gave the pudding a fun spice and brought out the flavor of the peaches. (The Biscoffs totally disintegrated, so I don’t recommend those. I know; I was bummed too.) Feel free to experiment with your cookie choices, though. It’s possible you’ll come up with something brilliant—and if you do, let me know!
You could use store-bought instant vanilla pudding for this dish, if you have urgent dessert needs, but if you’ve never made pudding from scratch, it’s worth your time to try it. In this simplified pudding recipe, you cook milk, sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and salt over medium-low heat until thickened. That’s it! A swirl of store-bought peach preserves completes the pudding, which is layered with fruit and cookies and finally topped with whipped cream. This will keep for a few days in the refrigerator, but it tastes best the day you make it.
Equipment
- 1 electric mixer
Ingredients
- 4 cups whole milk
- 1 cup white granulated sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, divided
- ½ cup cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup peach preserves
- 1 box Nilla wafers or gingersnap cookies
- 2 pounds fresh peaches, skin removed and sliced (or 2 pounds frozen peaches, thawed in a colander)
- 1 cup heavy cream
Directions
- Bring 2 inches of water in a medium pan to a boil.
- Whisk together milk, 1 cup sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and salt in a heatproof bowl and place the bowl in the boiling water. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the pudding, whisking constantly, until dramatically thickened, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat. Press a piece of plastic wrap onto the surface of the pudding (this prevents a skin from forming) and let it cool completely.
- In a glass serving dish (a trifle dish, if you want to be fancy about it, though a lasagna pan will work), build the peach pudding: spread a thick layer of the pudding, about ¼ of what you have, on the bottom of the pan. Dot this with about ¼ of the preserves, then use a butter knife to swirl the preserves into the pudding. Layer ⅓ of the cookies on top of the pudding, then layer ⅓ of the peach slices on top of the cookies. Repeat twice more. Top the last layer of peaches with the last of the pudding, then swirl the last of the preserves into it. Refrigerate, covered, until ready to serve, up to 3 days.
- When ready to serve, whip the heavy cream with 2 tablespoons sugar with an electric mixer. Top the pudding with the whipped cream and serve.
