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I’ve always had a pretty big sweet tooth, especially after I eat a meal. I’m always craving something sweet after dinner, yet my boyfriend is the total opposite. He would definitely rather have seconds of dinner than some dessert.
So it puts me in a predicament of wanting to make something for dessert, but not wanting a whole dish to go to waste with me being the only one to eat it!
Lately I’ve been craving bananas so I wanted to make a little individual dessert that incorporated bananas. I hopped onto Pinterest to try and find a recipe and couldn’t really find one that worked with the ingredients I had at home.
Thus, I threw one together myself.
Individual Banana Cream Pie In A Jar
I found this recipe from Taste of Home, and loosely based my recipe off of that one.
I used banana cream pie pudding instead of vanilla, crushed my graham cracker shells into mini jars, and veto’d the coconut flakes (cause I didn’t have any).
I had a bunch of these mini mason jars
I had some graham cracker tart shells in the pantry that I had bought a few weeks ago from the grocery store and found this to be a good use for them. They didn’t seem the sturdiest, so crushing them into the bottom of the mason jars seemed like the best solution.
Doing this also enabled me to extend the life of them and not force me to eat all four in one day LOL.
After I crushed the graham cracker crumbs into the bottom of the jars, I packed them down so they laid flat, and popped them in the freezer for a few minutes to set. I found this helped with creating a harder shell-like bottom and not making it too crumbly.
I then followed the instructions on my Banana Cream Pie pudding package (106g). It called for the powder to be mixed with 2 cups of milk. I whisked those together til my arm hurt (or 2 minutes), then let it sit for five minutes to set. I put mine in the fridge to set because I wanted it cold anyways.
When the graham cracker crumbs were set, I pulled them out of the freezer and scooped the pudding into the jars, filling to the top. A little whipped cream added on the top, and I was good to go!
Because I was the only one eating it, I only put pudding in one jar to then eat right away. I placed the remaining three graham cracker jars in the fridge, and each day thereafter I plopped some pudding in and had a dessert.
In the morning I made one and had it later in my lunch at work and that worked great too. I wasn’t sure how often I would eat them, so I didn’t want to make all four off the bat.
If you’re making them for guests you can definitely make them all at once and they’ll turn out great. You could even half the amount of pudding in each jar to then be able to double the amount of jars if you have more guests. One package of pudding makes for four very full jars, so if you half the pudding and add more whipped cream I’m sure no one will be complaining LOL.
But I promise you this dessert is so incredibly easy and so incredibly delicious. If you’re a big fan of banana cream pie like I am, you’ll love this!
- 1 (106g) pkg banana cream pie pudding
- 2 cups milk
- 4 graham cracker tart shells (20g shells)
- whipped topping
- 4 mini (4oz) jars
- Whisk pudding powder together with milk for approximately two minutes (or according to package instructions). Let sit for 5 minutes to set in the fridge.
- Crush one graham cracker shell into the bottom of each mini (4 oz) jar. Set in freezer for three minutes to set the crumbs on the bottom.
- Scoop pudding into jars, filling to the top.
- Top with whipped cream.
- If you don't have the graham cracker shells, you can easily make your own graham cracker shell mixture! Take 80g of crushed graham crackers & mix with melted butter to make the crumbs stick together when packed down.