We have a confession, Jessica has had this recipe in her back pocket for seven years! Yep, that’s right, seven years. Here’s the thing, life gets busy and it’s hard to know when it’s the best time to share something this good. And we decided, the time has come!
I (Jess) poached a LOT of egg yolks for my baby. Little Judah didn’t get tired of them so I’m not sure why I decided to invent this recipe. Maybe because I was tired of making them the same old way?? Regardless of why, he gobbled this custard up too!
When can I start offering this banana custard to my baby?
This recipe has a really unique texture in that it’s very smooth. Depending on how well you whisk the ingredients together, it can be as smooth as yogurt or you can leave it so that it’s a bit lumpy. This means, it’s totally appropriate to offer it to your baby at four months if you’ve already started solids. But you probably already know this about us, we are huge advocates starting solids around that sweet spot, six months. So this recipe would also be appropriate at this age!
Note: since this recipe calls for egg, you’ll want to make sure you’re aware that this is a highly allergenic food! Our e-course Start Solids Confidently, provides you with the latest up-to-date evidence on when and how to introduce the top allergens to your baby!
How Do I feed This Custard to my Baby?
Friends, we’ve made this one real easy. You are more than welcome to spoon feed it to your baby, especially if that is what has been working for you. A gentle reminder, if your baby is around 8 – 10 months (we know that’s a generous range), we do want them to experiment with self-feeding since it is a skill!
You could also pre-load a spoon such as the Ezpz Tiny Spoon, Num Num Gootensil or whatever is working for you, and allow your tiny eater an opportunity to pick up the spoon and bring it to their mouth! You can 100% offer some support by guiding it in the right direction. That hand to mouth coordination can be tricky!
Lastly, let your baby go all in! Yes. You can literally pour the custard into a bowl and let your baby go to town. It’s a wild and sweet mess, but that too is all a part of the sensory process. You can check out Nita’s little one enjoying something of a similar texture in the video below.
Suggested reading: BLW vs Spoon Feeding, Which is Best?
What’s the Nutritional Hype?
The key ingredient in this recipe is egg yolk. To our babes with an egg allergy, we’re so sorry, we haven’t found a way to replace the egg yolks just yet…maybe that’s next?! Because the recipe doesn’t call for egg white (btw…it’s totally safe to give your baby egg whites) it allows the iron from the egg yolk to be a really concentrated source. Among other nutrients are things like B vitamins, fat, and choline!
You’ll notice we intentionally added some ground flaxseed which is another great source of healthy fats for your growing baby, but also some fibre. Fun fact: ground flaxseed can help with laxation #poop!
Suggested reading: Help! My baby is constipated after starting solids
Lastly, don’t skip on the cinnamon. It really adds a sweet taste without adding any sugar which is why Jessica and Nita love to make it rain with cinnamon!
Can I Freeze This Custard for Later?
Since we’re dedicated to pre-emptively answering as many questions for you as we can, we tried freezing and defrosting this custard. Unfortunately, the water separated out upon defrosting and it became really weird. We strongly caution against freezing!
Watch How to Make the Custard Here!
Baby Banana Custard
Ingredients
- 1 banana
- 2 egg yolks
- ½ cup breastmilk or prepared infant formula or if child is older than 9 months: whole cow’s milk or alternative
- 1 tbsp ground flaxseed
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- Mash the banana really well with a fork. Add in the egg yolks and mash with fork to combine. Then, stir in the milk, flaxseed and cinnamon. Let this stand for 5 minutes to allow the ground flaxseed to thicken up just slightly. Then, mix again one more time.
- Pour into two custard dishes – or use several if you’d like!
- Place the dishes into a baking pan.
- Pour water into baking pan until the water level reaches halfway up the custard dish. This is called a hot water bath.
- Bake for 25-35 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Every oven works slightly differently, so keep that in mind!
- You can serve this after it has cooled. Or, keep it in the fridge for a few hours to serve it your baby cold. There’s nothing wrong with serving safe food that is cold!
Notes
If your baby enjoys this recipe, they may also enjoy our baby friendly pumpkin pie pudding!
8 thoughts on “Baby Banana Custard”
Even after 35min in the oven, when I poked the custard with a knife, moisture seemed to ooze out. Is that to be expected?
A little bit but you do want to see that the custard has set.
Loved this! We didn’t have flax seed handy so I skipped that, but the rest of the recipe stands without it. For anyone else wondering, we use Alimentum formula for our twins and that cooked really well in this recipe. In fact, I LOVED the custard and couldn’t taste the Alimentum at all–bonus. Mixed results from the actual babies, but that’s kinda where we are right now. 🙂 I split one of the custards between them and it was a pretty good quantity. We saved the other custard to try again tomorrow.
Awesome! Thank you for sharing your tips!
I baked mine for 45 mins in the oven and it was extremely watery? I used almond milk but otherwise followed the recipe to a T. What did I do wrong?
Almond milk is essentially almond flavoured water so that might be why it didn’t turn out!
I made this for my 10 month old and she loved it! She’s not a very big eater so I was surprised when she finished this entire recipe over two meals! So glad I was able to get all that goodness into her! I didn’t have ground flax so I subbed 1tbsp ground oats and it worked excellently. Will be making again!!
It’s amazing what the power of the banana can do with some kids!!