Can You Freeze Banana Pudding?
You’ve made a large batch of banana pudding and got confused about whether you can freeze it or not. Okay got it because I’ve been there.
It’s true that improper freezing can ruin your appetite the next time when you crave to have banana pudding. So, here’s what you can do to freeze banana pudding in the right way.
You can freeze banana pudding for over a week. But it’s not recommended because you will not get the freshness, similar taste, and texture that you enjoy on the first day of preparing the pudding. Still, it’s okay to freeze banana pudding and you can defrost it quite easily.
We are going to explain all the right ways of storing banana pudding along with some other information that will give you knowledge on this delicious dessert.
Banana Pudding Can’t Be Frozen, Is It True?
No, it’s not true, any food item can be frozen if you follow the proper steps. But it’s true that you have to compromise some nutritional properties of the food. Stull, you can eat the pudding after defrosting it the right way.
Since banana pudding is a perishable food and the taste needs to be preserved, it’s very important to understand which step might make this banana pudding uneatable.
Banana pudding has a lot of perishable ingredients such as custard, cookies, vanilla wafers, and last but not least, of course, fresh banana slices. Among all these ingredients, custard and banana are the main ingredients that fall under the solid perishable category.
If these two can be frozen properly, banana pudding can stay intact in the refrigerator for a long period of time. But that doesn’t mean cookies and wafers don’t need to be preserved at the right amount of temperature.
Keeping the banana pudding inside an airless jar inside the refrigerator would preserve the crunchiness of the biscuit-type ingredients hence the taste of the banana pudding stays intact.
Different Types of Banana Pudding
The base of banana pudding is the sweet vanilla layer that is also sometimes altered as custard.
Sometimes it is also served with whipped cream that covers the top layer. Depending on the place meringue is also used instead of whipped cream. But for meringue and whipped cream, it’s a bit difficult to freeze.
Below we have given you two types of banana pudding names. You need to first identify what type of banana pudding recipe you are going to put in the refrigerator.
Baked Banana Pudding
This type of pudding is basically cake-type pudding. Banana is used over or during the baking of this pudding. Comparatively, this type of pudding is easy to freeze than creamy pudding as these use less perishable ingredients.
Over that, these puddings are already baked, so when you are putting them inside the refrigerator, there has less chance to get a bad taste. Also, you can keep these types of pudding preserved for a long time.
But the taste of it would vary depending on your refrigerator temperature (you’ll get detailed information about the recommended temperature in the last part of this piece.)
Creamy Banana Pudding
This pudding is easy to make, and faster to make but also gets bad faster than baked pudding if you don’t preserve it properly. These puddings are thick cream type, like it’s a custard but biased towards the banana flavor.
These puddings have a lot of ingredients in them, mostly acidic foods. So preserving it without proper wrap would lead to make a bad smell and make bad taste. These puddings are served cold usually. The colder these puddings are, the better the taste you will get.
Usually, everyone tries to freeze this pudding before serving and the leftovers are also kept in the refrigerator.
Based on these two types, you have to categorize the basics of your banana pudding and then you will go for the amount calculation. Regarding the amount, you can freeze either a large volume of pudding or a small amount of pudding.
You can make banana pudding in either a single cup or a large batch.
Single-cup puddings are basically baked banana puddings. Although creamy puddings are also used in a single cup, that mixes with thick creams. Large batch puddings are basically the pudding that you buy from an outside shop or creamy pudding.
In comparison, large-volume puddings are a bit tough to freeze than single-cup pudding since it needs extra care to last long in the freezer.
How to Freeze Banana Pudding?
Now, let’s see the right way to freeze banana pudding.
Step 1: Prepare the amount of pudding you’re going to freeze
Before you keep a single cup of pudding in the freezer:
- Remove any kind of cream over it.
- If there are hard creams, you have to remove this cream the next time you eat your pudding.
To store a large batch of banana pudding,
- Fill the dish with lemon juices and store it in the freezer.
Why use lemon juice? Because there’s an effect of freezing a large amount of pudding, it may get discolored and turn brown. And, using lemon juice can prevent this situation.
Step 2: Keep it in the freezer
For a single cup of pudding,
- Use an airtight box to store the pudding. If the airtight box isn’t available, get big plastic bags to wrap the whole pudding. Since it’s a small amount, less air will keep the pudding fresh.
- You need to keep the temperature between 10 °C to 15 °C to keep the pudding fresh.
To store a large batch of pudding,
- Put it in a big container and make sure you secure the lid.
- The temperature recommendation is the same as above; 10-15 degrees but don’t go above 15 °C.
How to Defrost Banana Pudding?
Defrosting banana pudding isn’t a big deal. All you have to do is to get it out of the refrigerator and keep it in the normal place overnight. Follow the steps below to defrost any kind of banana pudding:
- To defrost the banana pudding without turning it into a mushy mess, first, you need to thaw it slowly. Do not keep the pudding in a place where the temperature fluctuates drastically.
- Transfer it from the deep refrigerator to the normal freezer and leave it there for approximately 6-8 hours. Although small portions of pudding, such as a single cup will take fewer hours to defrost.
- If you want to unfreeze it fast, you can try thawing it by submerging the pudding container into the water.
Make sure not to keep it in a very warm place or it may change the taste of the pudding. Specifically don’t use too much hot or warm water to defrost the pudding.
How Long Does Frozen Banana Pudding Last?
Banana pudding usually lasts for 5-7 days in the freezer. But if stored properly without keeping it near air, then it may last up to a month. You can store banana pudding for almost, near two months but it may not taste the same as it was in the first place. The best time to eat a frozen banana pudding is in three days from the day you placed it in the refrigerator.
How to Know If The Frozen Banana Pudding Is Spoiled?
The best way to know if the pudding was spoiled is by smelling it. Carefully unfreeze the banana pudding and check for any kind of bad odor. If you find any sweet smell with a vanilla-type odor, that means your pudding has started to go bad. Also if you can’t find any banana smell in your pudding, that means the ingredients have spoiled in the pudding.
FAQs
What are the side effects of freezing banana pudding?
If you can follow the steps properly and preserve banana pudding, then there will be very less side effects. It’s not like absolutely there won’t be any, but there will be less effective. Freezing banana pudding for a long time sometimes costs its vitamin and effect the textures.
How does the outside temperature affect the freezing of banana pudding?
Sometimes the outside temperature is an issue for banana pudding in the way, if the temperature goes above 35 degrees, the refrigerator sometimes fails to keep its freezing balance. Not only that in that high temperature keeping the banana pudding outside make it go bad faster than normal temperature.
Can banana pudding turn into ice?
If you are planning to keep it below -4°C, then it may turn into ice. We are talking about baked banana pudding, in terms of creamy banana pudding, it will definitely turn into ice if you put it under that temperature. Since you know liquids turn into ice easily, it’s very obvious that it will happen.
Conclusion
So, yes, you can freeze banana pudding. But even if in the conclusion, we’re saying that don’t freeze it if you absolutely don’t need to. Cause freezing banana pudding ruins the textural and you will feel watery in your mouth than regular outside banana pudding.
If you still have to do this, try to freeze it in an airtight container. The properly labeled container can save your banana pudding for longer periods, presumably 2 weeks or longer. But try to eat it overnight the same day it’s made. If you have leftovers, follow our instructions to freezing them properly.
Keep in mind that desserts like banana pudding perish fast. So try to freeze it as fast as you can to enjoy your banana pudding with its smoothness.
