🍌 Banana Cream Crunch Cups

Makes: 4 large cups
Prep: 25 minutes
Chill: 1–2 hours

Ingredients

Cream filling

• 1 box (3.4 oz / 96 g) instant vanilla pudding mix
• 1½ cups cold whole milk
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 ripe banana, mashed
• 2 tbsp sweetened condensed milk (optional, but highly recommended)

Crunch layer

• 1½ cups crushed vanilla wafers or shortbread cookies
• 3 tbsp melted butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• Pinch of salt

For layering

• 2–3 ripe bananas, sliced
• ½ cup mini chocolate chips or chocolate chunks
• Extra crushed cookies for topping

👩‍🍳 Method

1. Make the crunch: Mix crushed cookies, melted butter, brown sugar and salt. Toast in a skillet over medium-low heat for 4–5 minutes, stirring frequently, until golden and fragrant. Cool completely.
2. Make the pudding: Whisk pudding mix with cold milk for about 2 minutes. Let it stand for 5 minutes to thicken.
3. Make it extra creamy: Whip heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla until soft-medium peaks form.
4. Fold the whipped cream into the pudding. Gently fold in the mashed banana and condensed milk.
5. Layer each cup:
   • Cookie crunch
   • Banana slices
   • Banana cream
   • Chocolate chips
   • Cookie crunch
   • More banana cream
   • Banana slices + chocolate chips + cookie crumbs on top
6. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Two hours gives the best texture.

⭐ The secret to making it taste really good

Use very ripe bananas for the mashed banana in the cream, but use firm yellow bananas for the slices. The combination gives you strong banana flavor without turning the layers mushy.