Combine a banana cream pie and southern poke cake to make the perfect southern party dessert! This Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake has layers of homemade yellow cake, homemade banana pudding, slices of fresh bananas and homemade Crème Chantilly!
This post was created for Dixie Crystals by BigBearsWife, post and words written are 100%mine as always.
We’re combining southern favorites around here for this sweet recipe! We all know that we love a good poke cake around here and banana cream pies and banana pudding type desserts are always a hit here in the south! So of course when we combine the two desserts together, we get a cake that will knock your socks off!
Ingredients For Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake:
For the homemade vanilla cake:
(amounts in recipe)
- cake flour
- baking powder
- unsalted butter
- white sugar
- egg yolks
- teaspoon salt
- vanilla extract
- buttermilk
For the homemade banana cream filling:
(amounts in recipe)
- milk
- whites
- egg
- cornstarch
- all-purpose flour
- white sugar
- bananas
Toppings:
- Crème Chantilly
- crushed vanilla wafer cookies
You’ll need about 15 – 20 vanilla wafers for the top of this cake. I just pour them into a ziplock bag and crush them with a rolling pin. For this cake though, I like to leave the pieces a little chunky instead of turning them into crumbs.
Ingredient amounts and recipe directions are below with a print option!
How To Make Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake:
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First, we’re going to start with the homemade vanilla cake. I have a tendency to bake poke cakes in a 2 quart dish because I like the pieces to be thick but you could also make this cake in a 9×13 casserole dish.
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Once the yellow cake has been baked and cooled, used the end of a wooden spoon or the end of a spatula to poke a bunch of holes into the top of the cake.
You really want to make sure to do this when the cake has cooled down some though because if you try to poke holes in it while it’s super hot, the cake will rip to pieces and that’s not exactly what we want here. -
This is where the poke cake gets it’s name from, because we’re poking a bunch of holes into the cake so that the homemade banana cream filling will soak down into the cake.
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Now it’s time to pour on our homemade banana cream filling. Make sure that the pudding is HOT when you do this because you want it to really melt down into the holes that were just make in the cake.
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Pop the entire cake into the fridge and let it chill for about 2 hours or until the pudding is cold. Once the pudding layer is cold, it’s time to layer on those sliced bananas. For these photos, it look 2 bananas to cover the entire top of the pudding layer.
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Then we’re onto the last 2 steps. Whipping cream and sugar come together to make the homemade Crème Chantilly frosting that gets slathered onto of the banana slices, which makes the perfect topping.
After that, we’re finishing off this homemade Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake with crushed vanilla wafers because vanilla wafer cookies and banana cream go hand in hand!
Now it is just time to serve it up! I love this cake chilled and normally recommend poke cakes be served chilled because of the pudding filling layers and the whipped cream topping. It’s not going to go bad if it sits out for a little bit but it’s a cake that does need to be refrigerated in my opinion for the best taste.
Can this Banana Poke cake be made with other cake flavors?
Of Course! I really like the vanilla cake with this recipe because it reminds me of a homemade Banana Cream Pie but you can use any flavor cake that you like. A chocolate cake would be amazing with this as well.
How long will poke cake keep in the fridge?
Poke cakes should last about 2-3 days in the fridge.
How many holes do I poke in a poke cake?
I don’t use an exact number for poking holes in poke cakes. If I’m using my 2 quart dish that I normally bake pokes cakes in, then I find that I normally poke about 8 – 10 holes across the top and then start a new row. I like for the pudding to really get down into poke cakes when I make them.
Just remember, if you poke too many (aka rip the top part of the cake up haha) then the poke cake might get too much pudding down into it and be a soggy mess of pudding and cake. (A delicious but soggy mess of cake haha.) If you don’t poke enough holes, then the pudding won’t get down into the cake and then it could turn out to be a dry poke cake with pudding on top. No one wants a dry poke cake.
More tasty banana recipes:
Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake
Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake
Combine a banana cream pie and southern poke cake to make the perfect southern party dessert! This banana cake has layers of homemade yellow cake, homemade banana pudding, slices of fresh bananas and homemade Crème Chantilly!
Ingredients
For Yellow Cake:
- 2 cups cake flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, soft
- 1 1/2 cups white sugar
- 8 large egg yolks at room temperature
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 3/4 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
For Banana Cream Pudding:
- 3 cups milk
- 4 eggs
- 1/4 cup cornstarch
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 2 ripe bananas, mashed + 2 bananas, sliced
For Topping:
- whipped cream
- 1/4 cup crushed vanilla wafer cookies
Instructions
For Yellow Cake :
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Sift together flour and baking powder and set aside.
Mix butter until creamy.
Add sugar and mix until light and fluffy.
Add one egg yolk at a time and mix well before adding the next.
Add salt and vanilla extract
Add one third of flour and mix until combined.
Add half of buttermilk and mix until smooth.
Add another one third of flour and mix smooth. Add remaining buttermilk and once combined add remaining flour.
Pour into a greased 2 quart pan, bake for 45-60 minutes or done. Cake is done when center of cake bounces back when lightly pressed with a finger or an inserted toothpick comes clean.
Let cake cool completely.
When cake is cool, use end of wooden spoon and poke holes into top of cake.
For For Banana Cream Pudding:
Heat 3 cups milk in medium sauce pan over medium heat.
In a medium bowl, stir together 3 egg whites and 1 whole egg.
Stir in cornstarch, flour and sugar.
When milk is hot, stir in sugar mixture. Stir until smooth.
Add in mashed bananas and whisk until smooth.
Heat and whisk for 8 minutes. When pudding starts to thicken, remove from heat and pour pudding over cake.
Place cake into fridge for 2 hours or until pudding is cold.
Remove cake from fridge.
Slice 2 bananas into coins and place banana slices on top of chilled pudding layer.
Top with a layer of Crème Chantilly.
Sprinkle top of cake with crushed vanilla wafers
Serve cold.
If you make this recipe, leave me a comment or snap a picture and share it on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter with the hashtag #bigbearswife — I love to see what you’re cooking from the blog!
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Mary says
How long will this keep in the fridge?
Angie says
about 2-3 days
Mary says
Thanks! I want to make it for work. I have some non-chocolate people I want to bake for.