Banana bread has always been a classic way to use up your overly ripe bananas. I love a good banana bread myself, but I can never resist a slice of this Vietnamese banana coconut bread pudding. It's called bánh chuối nướng, which translates to banana cake, but I'm calling it a bread pudding because of the way it's made. Nướng means it is baked, differentiating it from a similar steamed cake. This baked bread pudding is made with chunks of bread soaked in a coconut milk custard. Chunks of banana are layered into the bread mix before baking.
Thai bananas for Bánh Chuối Nướng
I like to use Thai bananas for this dish because they hold their shape better in the bread pudding mix and they tend to turn a beautiful purple color once cooked. Thai bananas are shorter and fatter than the regular bananas you'd see at the grocery store, I find them often at Asian grocery stores. If you don't have access to Asian groceries, this cake will still work with regular bananas. You will want to treat them more gently when mixing things around and you might not get the coloring you want once the bread pudding is cooked.
Vietnamese Coconut Banana Bread Pudding (Bánh Chuối Nướng): Step-by-step instructions
Peel the bananas and soak them in rum and sugar overnight. You can either soak them whole like this, split them in half or slice them into coins before soaking. I ended up slicing all of these in half before putting them in the fridge.
Mix coconut milk, whole milk, condensed milk, butter, an egg, salt and vanilla together to form the custard. Add the bananas with all of the liquid that has collected while they were marinating to the custard. Tear your bread up into small one inch chunks and soak them in the custard until they are completely saturated. I recommend using Italian bread. Find a bread that is more hardy than sandwich break but doesn't have a crust that is too rough. You don't want the bread to disintegrate in the custardbut you also don't want it to be too dry and hard.
Grease a loaf pan or an 8 inch round cake pan and begin to layer the bread and banana pieces into the pan. You can either randomly throw in the mixture with banana coins and bread pieces, or carefully layer bread pieces with banana halves, as shown in the photo. There's no rhyme or reason to it; just layer it in a way that you'll get a bit of banana and bread in every bite.
Add a layer of banana on top of the mixture before baking. I chose to lay banana halves over the loaf pan. Be creative with the shape and formation of the bananas.
Let the bread come to room temperature and chill before eating.
