Magnolia Bakery Banana Pudding Copycat

Magnolia Bakery’s famous banana pudding made at home and even better! It’s perfectly sweetened, super creamy, and always a crowd favorite. The best part is it’s a no-bake dessert that comes together in less than an hour!

If you don’t already know this, Magnolia Bakery actually publicly shared their famous recipe for banana pudding in their cookbook which is how most people make it! Of course, I had to change a few things to make it more my taste and I know you all will just love too.

• The first thing I added was butter to crumbled Nilla wafers to form a crust at the bottom of the banana pudding! This adds a nice rich taste and crunchy texture like a little present at the bottom of the cup.
• The second thing I added was a little bit of cream cheese to the pudding. Not enough to taste it but just enough to balance the sweetness of the recipe!
• The third thing I did was make the vanilla pudding using cold milk instead of cold water. It just makes the pudding even more rich and creamy.

And now, let’s get started!

Making the Pudding

The first step to making this delicious dessert is the vanilla pudding! Fun fact: the banana flavor in banana pudding does not come from the actual pudding itself, it’s from the banana slices. But when you throw it all together, everything starts to taste like banana! However if a stronger banana flavor is what you’re going for, you can puree bananas and add it to the pudding.

Here are all the ingredients you will need:

• instant vanilla pudding
• cold milk
• sweetened condensed milk
• cream cheese, softened
• heavy cream
• vanilla extract

To a bowl, add the instant vanilla pudding and cold milk. Whisk and let it sit for 10 minutes until it thickens up. Once thick, add the softened cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk and mix until you have a batter-like consistency.

Then to another bowl, beat together heavy cream and vanilla extract until stiff peaks form to make whipped cream. Combine the whipped cream with the pudding to make the filling. Set aside in the fridge.

The Crust

Traditional banana pudding has no crust but I really love adding one, especially when I make them in little individual cups/servings. It adds a beautiful rich flavor and bite to this recipe but if you’d like to go without it, it’s completely not necessary.

You only need two ingredients for this step: Nilla wafers and melted unsalted butter!

Add the wafers to a food processor and blend until the texture is like sand. Transfer to a bowl and mix with the melted butter and that’s basically it. Now it’s time to assemble!

Assembling the Banana Pudding

You can either assemble the banana pudding in individual cups, a large trifle cup, a casserole dish, or a baking pan.

To the bottom, add a thin layer of the crust. Then add a layer of banana slices, a layer of Nilla wafers, and a thick layer of the vanilla pudding. Repeat again with the bananas, Nilla wafers, and vanilla pudding.

Chill for at least 4 to 6 hours before serving! This gives enough time for pudding to soften the Nilla wafers and to soak up the banana flavor.

If you tried this recipe and loved it, drop by down below and let me know how you liked it with a rating and comment! Feel free to also leave a question there about this recipe and I’ll get right back to it.

To see more recipes and behind the scenes, follow along on Instagram and Youtube! I’m also now on Pinterest pinning away so stop by and see what’s up.