I’m obsessed with make homemade store-bought cookies.  And when you make Vanilla wafers, you have to make some kind of pudding to go with them.  So I dug down deep and though about the fanciest thing I could do with pudding and vanilla wafers.  Unfortunately there were no bananas.

INGREDIENTS

Pudding
2 ½ cups half-and-half
⅔ cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1 vanilla bean
3 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Wafers
1 cup granulated sugar
Seeds from 1/2 of a fresh vanilla bean
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 large egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 1/3 cups flour

DIRECTIONS

Pudding
Put 2 cups of half-and-half or milk, sugar and salt in a small or medium saucepot over medium-low heat. If using a vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise and scrape seeds into milk or half-and-half using small sharp knife, then add pod. Cook just until mixture begins to steam.

Combine cornstarch and remaining milk or half-and-half in a bowl and blend; there should be no lumps. Remove pod from pot and discard. Add cornstarch mixture; cook, stirring occasionally, until mixture starts to thicken and barely reaches a boil, about 5 minutes. Immediately reduce heat to very low and stir for 5 minutes or so until thick. Stir in butter and vanilla extract.

Pour mixture into a bowl and put plastic wrap directly on the pudding to prevent formation of a skin. Refrigerate until chilled until

Wafers
Heat oven to 350°F. In the bottom of a large bowl, combine sugar and vanilla been seeds, rubbing them together so that the abrasion from the sugar granules helps release the maximum vanilla flavor. Add the butter and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, beat to combine. Sprinkle baking powder and salt over batter, beat to combine.  Add flour and once again, beat just to combine.

Once the wafers are cooled line a glass bowl lined with plastic wrap with wafers.  Leave a little room a the top. Fill with pudding and then put a layer of wafers over the top (this will later be the bottom).  Cover with lid or plastic wrap to refrigerate for several hours. When ready to serve, flip out onto a dish.  Serve with whipped cream.

I got the idea from this recipe.

But got the pudding recipe from here.