Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake

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RECIPE LINK IS BELOW AND HAS A PRINTABLE RECIPE CARD BUT BLOG POST IS FULL OF “HOW TO MAKE IT”, TIPS, INFORMATION AND FAQ

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! 

Quick Glance of What you need for Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake: (amounts in recipe)

For the homemade vanilla cake:

(amounts in recipe)

• cake flour
• baking powder
• unsalted butter
• Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
• egg yolks
• teaspoon salt
• vanilla extract
• buttermilk

For the homemade banana cream filling:

(amounts in recipe)

• milk
• whites 
• egg
• cornstarch
• all-purpose flour
• Dixie Crystals Extra Fine Granulated 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. 

How to make Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake:

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.

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. 

 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. 

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. 

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. 

QUICK GLANCE Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake FAQ:

1. 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. 
2. How long will poke cake keep in the fridge? Poke cakes should last about 2-3 days in the fridge.
3. 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: 

• Chocolate Chip Banana Bread
• Banana Split Eclair Dessert
• Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

Banana Cream Pie Poke Cake

I MADE THIS RECIPE FOR DIXIE CRYSTALS AND THEY’VE GOT THE ENTIRE RECIPE POSTED ON THEIR SITE.

JUST CLICK HERE TO GRAB IT!

 

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