Banana Pudding Cheesecake

Is there any dessert more Southern than Nanner Pudding?

Vanilla wafers, vanilla pudding, and bananas all put together to make one of the tastiest 

desserts you ever did put in your mouth. 

I can't get enough of it. I like to make it and I like to eat it.

No matter if you like meringue on top or whipped cream, it's all good in my book.

I had recently seen a recipe for Banana Pudding Cheesecake in a Southern Living cookbook.
My family is absolutely nuts about cheesecake and we are absolutely bonkers about Banana Pudding, so I knew this was the dessert for us.

But that recipe was pretty lengthy.

So I set about to making this dessert a little bit easier to make so it can be more of an everyday dessert.  We've discussed this before, y'all know I'm kind of a lazy baker.

Every now and then I get the urge to go all out and have a fun day of baking but most days I'm looking for easy but yummy. 

So I'm using a store bought pie crust and a little secret ingredient to really amp up that yummy banana flavor.  I'm so pleased with how my shortcut recipe turned out.

I just know y'all are gonna love it!

Ingredients:

1 premade large graham cracker crust (2 extra servings)
2 (8 oz.) blocks cream cheese, softened to room temperature

1 (3.4 oz) box banana cream instant pudding

2 eggs

1/2 cup sugar

2 ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice

15 vanilla wafers

(lemon not pictured)

I'm using a larger graham cracker crust. 

You'll want to look for one that says "2 extra servings"

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300F degrees.

 In the bowl of your stand mixer (or using a handheld electric mixer), combine cream cheese

 and sugar until smooth (about 2 minutes on medium speed).

Add in eggs and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, mash up your bananas. I just use my potato masher.

Squeeze in the juice from the lemon (watch out for the seeds!)

Stir until combined. 

The lemon juice will keep your bananas from browning too quickly but also add a bit of flavor to the cheesecake.

Add the powdered instant pudding and the mashed bananas to the cream cheese mixture.

If you are using a stand mixer, it's really important that you scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl often.

Mix until combined. Batter will be thick.

Put vanilla wafers into ziploc bag, and crush using your hands or a rolling pin.

You want to leave some of them chunky so that you'll see bits of wafer in the cheesecake when you cut into it. 

Gently fold the wafers into the cheesecake batter.

Spread batter into graham cracker crust.

Bake in the oven for about 55-60 minutes. 

It'll be a pit puffy when you first take it out of the oven.

Don't worry, it'll all settle down as it cools.

Allow cheesecake to cool for several hours in the fridge before serving. 

A great way to serve this is to top each slice with a little squirt of whipped cream and a slice of banana and vanilla wafer on top.

Cook's Notes: This cheesecake can be made without the bananas. The instant pudding gives this cheesecake a lot of banana flavor so if you skip the mashed banana step, you'll still have a great tasting cheesecake.

Also, I looked everywhere for one of those premade Nilla Wafer crusts. None of my local stores seem to carry them right now. But if you can find them near you, I think it would taste wonderful with this recipe. Just remember though that this recipe is made for a larger pie crust so you'll have filling leftover when you use a smaller crust.

Enjoy!

Printable Recipe Here

Like this recipe?

Then check out this recipe for Southern Banana Pudding

or this one~ Easy Dreamy Cheesecake