Banana Cream Pie

After I had my baby, my friend brought over her family's favorite dessert - Banana Pudding. I think my husband and I ate the entire pan that night. It had layers of Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies, bananas, and was so rich, creamy and delicious. I emailed her and said I wanted the recipe, but I couldn't wait for her to respond. So I started a search for banana pudding and found Paula Dean's Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding. I knew I had found the recipe.

My husband requested a banana cream pie for Father's Day. First off, he LOVES banana cream pie. Second, he wanted something easy so that I wasn't spending the whole day in the kitchen slaving away. I searched for recipes but all of the ones that appealed to me involved turning on the oven and stove.


In the end I decided to use a store-bought Nilla wafer crust (gasp!) and filled it with bananas and the pudding from Paula Dean's recipe. My husband guessed right away what I had done. There is no mistaking this pudding. It's a combination of french vanilla pudding, cream cheese, and whipped topping. A-MAZING. And it is so easy. Some may call it cheating, but I just call it good eats.


Banana Cream Pie
Adapted from Paula Dean's Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding
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1 Nilla wafer crust
3 to 4 bananas, sliced
1 cup milk
1 (3.4 oz) box instant French vanilla pudding
1/2 pkg (4 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/2 can (7 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 container (6 oz) frozen whipped topping thawed, or equal amount sweetened whipped cream

Layer the sliced bananas on the bottom of the crust.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the bananas.

Refrigerate until ready to serve, at least 2 hours.