Scratchmade Southern

Bougie Banana Pudding for Easter dessert 🍌🐰

It had been a while since I made a fun, indulgent dessert, and I got inspired after binging some baking videos. The result was this creamy, rich, silky Southern classic, taken up a few notches.

Featuring a pound cake foundation, creme diplomat middle layer (pastry cream recipe from ), banana coins, and slightly sweetened whipped cream, topped with a light sprinkling of crushed Biscoff cookies. It was well loved and well eaten.

This year’s new garden addition: luffa!

Each year I like to add at least one new thing to our garden: a new variety or whole new plant. This year that honor went to luffas (and butternut squash but this post is about luffa).

We put up a trellis in the back of our garden, planted a couple seedlings, and hoped for the best. The plants grew quickly and produced more than a dozen gourds, which I’m now drying and processing into sponges.

How amazing is it that we can grow our own household items right in our backyards?

Here’s to growing even more next year.

I love a bar with a personality, and is full of it. Warm and inviting, witty and self-aware. Not trying to be fancy or full of frills, just trying to be fun.

It’s one of my favorite lunch stops in Gulf Shores, and I’m 100% unashamed of my love for this pink beach-side pub (and their rum punch).