Cream Cheese Banana Pudding is a delicious rendition of banana pudding with a graham cracker crust, a cream cheese layer, vanilla custard, and of course, bananas!
Prep Time30 minutesmins
Cook Time8 minutesmins
Total Time38 minutesmins
Servings: 10servings
Calories: 694kcal
Author: Lucy Brewer
Ingredients
Graham Cracker Crust
2 ½cupsgraham cracker crumbs
½cupgranulated sugar
⅔cupmelted butter
Cream Cheese Filling
2 8-ounceblocks Philadelphia Cream Cheese
½cupgranulated sugar
1teaspoonvanilla
Custard
2cupswhole milk
2cupsheavy cream
1vanilla bean
12egg yolks
¾cupsugar
⅓all-purpose flour
¼teaspoonsalt
3teaspoonsvanilla extract
Other Ingredients
4ripe bananas
1box vanilla wafers, crumbled
Instructions
Graham Cracker Crust
Preheat oven to 375. Stir together crumbs and sugar. Add melted butter and mix until well-blended. Spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray and spread crumb mixture in the dish to make a crust. Bake about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Cream Cheese Filling
In large bowl, beat cream cheese for 5 minutes. Add sugar and beat until light and creamy. Add vanilla and beat until combined.
Custard
Twist the vanilla bean but don’t scrape it and then add it to a medium pot with the milk and 1 cup of the cream. Heat slowly until almost simmering and then cover, remove from heat and allow to steep for 20 minutes.
Put the egg yolks in a bowl and whisk in the sugar, then the flour and salt. Whisk until completely smooth and make sure there are no lumps hiding in there. Remove the vanilla bean from the milk and slowly whisk the milk into the egg yolks. Then put all of the goodness back into the saucepan and cook over medium-high heat until the custard thickens, whisking constantly. This should take about 3-5 minutes.
Be sure you scrape the bottom and sides of the pan. After the custard begins to boil, cook for one minute longer and then remove it from the heat. The custard will be very thick. Strain through a fine-meshed sieve into a large bowl.
Immediately whisk in the remaining 1 cup of cream and three teaspoons of vanilla. Continue whisking until the cream is completely mixed in.
Layering
Spread cream cheese over the graham cracker crust. Sprinkle some vanilla wafer crumbs, then add a layer of sliced bananas. Spread custard over the bananas and sprinkle remaining vanilla wafer crumbs over the top. (You can layer bananas between the graham cracker crust and the cream cheese too.)
Notes
Tips for the Best Cream Cheese Banana Pudding:
In lieu of the homemade custard, use two large boxes of cook and serve vanilla pudding mix. Use sweetened condensed milk for some of the whole milk and add some vanilla.
Store the Cream Cheese Banana Pudding in the refrigerator.
This recipe is best served the day it's made. However, you can make the individual components a day or even two ahead: bake the graham cracker crust, the cream cheese filling, and the custard. Store them separately in the refrigerator.