Have you ever eaten banana pudding?
It’s one of those desserts that tastes so much better than it sounds. Creamy vanilla pudding with a subtle and natural banana flavour, often served with soft wafer cookies, banana pudding is decadent and delicious.
This month, I wanted to figure out how to make banana pudding a little more portable and a little less messy.
These banana pudding cookie bars definitely fit the bill!
I was a bit stumped at how to convert my healthy banana pudding recipe to cookie form, until I learned that the famous Magnolia bakery uses a boxed banana pudding mix for their own renowned banana pudding.
That made things much easier.
Along with the pudding mix, this recipe also uses vanilla wafer cookies to give a great, chewy, crumbly texture to the banana pudding bars, and I added Ghiradelli white chocolate chips, because I put them in anything I can get away with!
Part of the “trick” to a great cookie bar recipe is to twice bake the “crust” like you would with a pie.
So for this recipe, I mixed melted butter with some of the crushed vanilla wafer cookies and pushed it into a lined 9×13″ baking dish and baked that for 5 minutes while I created the top “layer.” This gives the cookie bars a solid base so they don’t completely fall apart in your hands, without overcooking the rest of the bar which would make it way too hard to eat.
I honestly don’t know who loves these bars more – me or the kids! The awesome thing about making them into bars rather than traditional cookies is that I can control the portion sizes a bit easier — bigger for me, smaller for them!
What do you think? Would you try my banana pudding cookie bar recipe?
PS – I used Jell-O Banana Pudding mix and Nilla wafers, if you’re curious!
Banana Pudding Bars
Ingredients
- 12 ounces Vanilla Wafers, crushed
- 1 ¾ cup Butter
- 2 ½ cups All Purpose Flour
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1-3.4oz package of Banana Cream Pudding Mix
- 2 Eggs
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1 cup White Chocolate Chips
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400F
- Crush the wafers and set aside 1 cup for the top layer of the cookie bars.
- Mix the remaining wafers with 3/4 cups melted butter, and press into the bottom of a 9*13" baking dish. Bake for 5 minutes while preparing the next layer.
- Stir together the flour, baking soda, salt, sugar, and pudding mix. Mix in the eggs, remaining 1 cup butter, and the vanilla extract until fully incorporated.
- Stir in the chocolate chips and the reserved vanilla wafers. Spoon the mixture onto the pre-baked crust.
- Bake the bars at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the bars comes out clean.
Check out these other delicious cookie recipes from my fellow bloggers:
- Cherry and Chocolate Chip Scones from Spiceroots
- Chocolate Andes Mint Chip Cookies from Karen’s Kitchen Stories
- Chocolate Stout and Pretzel Cookies from Cookie Dough and Oven Mitt
- Flourless Dark Chocolate Espresso Oatmeal Cookies from Rhubarb and Honey
- Gourmet Iced Oatmeal Raisin Cookies from Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks
- Hazelnut Espresso Cookies from 2 Cookin’ Mamas
- Lemon Bits Oatmeal Cookies from Our Good Life
- Nibbed Caramel Blondies from What Smells So Good?
- Nutty Bits Cookies from Basic N Delicious
- Peanut Butter Chunk Cookies from Noshing With The Nolands
- Rocky Road Cookies from Upstate Ramblings
- Sour Cream Chocolate Chip Cookies from Magnolia Days
- Strawberry n White Choc Chunk Blondies from Baking in Pyjamas
- Trail Mix Cookies from Holly at A Baker’s House
- Uncle Hector’s 100 Cookies from Food Lust People Love
Renee says
June 16, 2015 at 7:55 amMust. Make. These. MUST.
Kimberly says
June 16, 2015 at 8:07 amMy hubby is a huge banana pudding fan … I think these will be making an appearance in our house soon!
Ansh says
June 16, 2015 at 9:43 amThese sound like a party of flavors. My faorite flavors!
Holly says
June 16, 2015 at 9:53 amI like the sound of these! The wafer crust layered with the pudding layer sounds divine.
Tara says
June 16, 2015 at 10:43 amBe still my heart, I am in love, these look fantastic and I adore banana anything!!
Karen @ Karen's Kitchen Stories says
June 16, 2015 at 10:29 pmI love the idea of using pudding mix. I’ve used it in shortbread and it’s great! Your bars sound amazing!
Stacy says
June 16, 2015 at 11:49 pmWhat a great idea! Banana pudding that’s easily transportable! Those bars look lovely, Jennifer!
Hezzi-D says
June 17, 2015 at 1:08 pmThese sound wonderful! I love banana pudding and mixed with white chocolate it sounds great. I bet you could substitute other pudding flavor as well.
sarah says
June 17, 2015 at 8:35 pmOMG my family is going to LOVE you for this!
Lanae Bond says
June 22, 2015 at 9:25 amI have heard a banana pudding poke cake before but I never heard of in banana pudding bar! I think it is a great idea but I am a little biased because I love banana pudding period!
Joanna @ Everyday Made Fresh says
June 22, 2015 at 10:09 amThese look delicious! I love banana pudding and banana pudding ice cream, so know that I would love it in bar form!
Laura@Baking in Pyjamas says
June 24, 2015 at 5:00 amOh my, how I wish we had those ingredients here in the UK as I would just LOVE to make them, they look so crumbly and buttery, yum!
Jennifer Tammy says
June 24, 2015 at 6:11 amYou know, if they had a Banana Angel Delight, that would be a perfect substitute… but I don’t think they do?
Mary says
February 1, 2018 at 8:41 pmHello – I have a question. Is the butter in step 4 melted or softened?
Thanks for your help!
Jennifer Tammy says
February 2, 2018 at 9:14 pmSoftened – I’m sorry, I wasn’t very clear in that recipe. (This was written when I was very new to food blogging!)
Jessica says
April 2, 2019 at 1:42 pmbanana pudding bars is really awesome in taste and everyone can make at home without knowing any skills.
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