Old Order (Butterscotch) Pudding

This recipe was always a favorite of mine as a child, and a dish that I always looked forward to having at family reunions. My parents are both descended from Old Order German Baptists* who settled in rural areas north of Dayton, Ohio. On many occasions, I would go to large family gatherings where I would savor the best-ever fried chicken and gravy, potato pot pie, chicken and dumplings, and the most delectable butterscotch dessert which my family labeled “Old Order Pudding.” As older members of the family passed on, the frequency of the reunions diminished, but I always retained this Norman Rockwell image of my Old Order relatives sitting down together for a large family meal after church on Sunday eating fried chicken and having “Old Order Pudding” for dessert. The saddest day for me was one Sunday in the early eighties when my maternal grandmother and I saw a group of Old Order German Baptists pull into the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant. My grandmother and I laughed about how times were changing, and I realized that the image I had of those Sunday dinners after church was no longer the norm. I was, however, comforted in knowing that I had a special treasure from my past which was the cherished family recipe for “Old Order Pudding.” I knew that I could fix it on Sunday or any other day of the week; I also knew that I could pass down this dessert recipe to my triplet daughters. I am now a suburban homemaker far removed from the rural farms where my grandparents grew up, and even though nobody in my immediate family is a member of the Old Order German Baptist Church, we still enjoy some of its culinary traditions.

Old Order (Butterscotch) Pudding

1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
2-3 T. water

Cook above ingredients in a saucepan over medium-high heat stirring constantly. Cook mixture until it comes to a boil and begins to thicken then reduce the heat to low.

In another bowl, mix together the following ingredients:

1/3 cup flour
2 T. white sugar
1 egg
2 cups milk

Add above mixture to saucepan with the hot mixture and cook until thick stirring constantly. When pudding cools, fold in:

2 sliced bananas
1/3 cup chopped peanuts

*Old Order German Baptists- For an explanation of this term, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_German_Baptist_Brethren