If you are a banana lover, this recipe should go to the top of your playbook. It takes regular, run-of-the-mill banana pudding to a whole new level. It’s perfect for barbecues and parties by serving it into individual cups and I promise, your guests will rave about it.
Bananas Foster is a famous dessert created in the 1950s in New Orleans. So we’re combining it with the pudding to make a dessert that has it all – sweet and rich, creamy and crunchy.
There are a few steps but in reality a very easy, no bake (except for crumbles) recipe you can make well ahead of time. My one tip is to not pipe the final whipped cream topping until just before serving.
Be sure to cook off the alcohol by flambee (fire) or the bananas will be far too strong. And be careful of fire, especially underneath a home cooking hood!
Now, let’s cook…
Ingredients
Pudding
- 2 cups Whole milk - cold
- 2 3.4oz French Vanilla Instant pudding packages
- 1 tsp Banana extract
- 1 14oz Sweetened condensed milk - 1 can
Whipped cream
- 2 cups Heavy whipping cream - cold
- 2 TBSP powdered sugar
Crumbles
- 6 oz Nilla wafers
- 1/4 cup Melted butter
- 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
Bananas Foster
- 2 large Bananas - sliced
- 3 TBSP Salted butter
- 1/4 cup Brown sugar
- 3 TBSP Dark Rum
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F
- Combine pudding ingredients in large mixing bowl and whisk until well combined and thickened. Set aside.
- In stand mixing bowl, add cold milk and begin to to whisk on MED speed. when starts to thicken, slow speed down and add powdered sugar. Continue on MED until stiff peaks form.
- Slowly and gently fold (with spatula) about 2/3 of whipped cream into pudding until completely integrated (no white streaks). Place rest of whipped cream into piping bag, set both bag and pudding bowl in fridge while you work on rest of dessert.
- Make crumbles. I use food processor to quickly crumble the wafers to a medium fine granularity. In a large mixing bowl add crumbled wafers, melted butter, extract and salt. With fork, mix until completely combined and you have a wet sand like consistency. On a large sheet tray lined with parchment paper or Silmat, spread crumbles in even layer. Bake in oven 10-12 minutes or until just starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cool.
Bananas Foster
- Slice bananas lengthwise and then slice into 1/8" half moons.
- Heat large skillet over MED heat. Add butter. When melted, add sugar and mix to a slurry. Add Bananas and sautee in mixture until just softened. 2-3 min. Add rum and flambee alcohol off, reducing for another 2 min. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Build your cups
- In clear 8oz cups or small Mason jars work well too. Place 1 TBSP crumbles into bottom. Then 1 TBSP cooked and cooled bananas on top. Then fill 2/3 of the cup with pudding. I like to use another piping bag for this as well – makes it so much easier and cleaner! Then dust the top of that layer with more crumbles.
- Refrigerate at least 1 hour before serving. Pipe final layer of whipped cream on top of that and finish with another light dusting of crumbles just before serving.
