You are going to love this southern banana pudding cake. Made from a doctored-up boxed cake mix and filled with banana pudding before being covered in a homemade whipped cream cheese frosting.
If you're looking for the ultimate banana pudding cake recipe, this one is it. Made with minimal ingredients and effort, this cake looks almost too good to eat!
Make a fancy cake for under $10 with this great recipe! This easy banana pudding cake is one of our favorites, and it's not hard to see why. Packed with so much flavor in every bite, this is a perfect cake for any occasion.
We love banana cakes like this Banana Pound Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze, but sometimes boxed cake mixes are ideal time savers!
Why This Recipe Works
- Minimal ingredients. From start to finish, you'll need less than a dozen ingredients to make this cake, the frosting, and the filling inside.
- Perfect for any occasion. This cake can be great for summer, spring, and everything in between, like forest and monkey theme birthday parties or baby showers.
- It looks like more effort than it really is! It's always great when something takes minimal effort to pull together, but this recipe really takes the cake. It looks like it takes hours of manual labor, but it requires very little effort, and just a tad more patience.
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🥘 Ingredients
For the Cake, you will need:
Yellow Cake Mix- This is the base of the cake recipe.
Ripe Bananas- These will make the cake sweeter and have a nice banana flavor.
Banana Flavored Instant Pudding Mix- You only need the dry mix. Do not prepare the pudding. This pudding will give us a stronger banana flavor.
Large Eggs- Use these to bind the batter together so that the cake doesn't turn out to crumbly.
Vegetable Oil- Adding in vegetable oil will give the cake the fats necessary to remain moist.
Vanilla Extract- A flavor enhancer.
For the Filling, you will need:
Banana Flavored Instant Pudding Mix- For a nice yellow filling packed with banana flavor.
Milk- You will need whole milk as requested on the box of the instant pudding mix. Less fatty milks or dairy free milks may not set correctly.
For the Frosting, you will need:
Heavy Whipping Cream- Heavy cream will make our frosting very fluffy and easy to spread.
Powdered Sugar- For added sweetness without changing the consistency of the frosting.
Cream Cheese- This will give us a rich tangy frosting that pairs wonderfully with the sweet cake.
Vanilla Extract- A flavor enhancer.
Salt- A natural flavor enhancer. This will make the other flavors stand out better.
For the Decorations, you will need:
Nilla Wafer Cookies- This is optional but recommended for a nice garnish. I used my cookies as crumbs around the outside of the cake and as a topping.
Ripe Bananas- Sliced ripe bananas as a garnish will help to accent the banana flavors within the cake.
For specific quantities, see the recipe card below.
🍽 Equipment Needed
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- Parchment Paper
- 2 9-inch Cake Pans
- Whisk
- Mixing Bowls
- Electric Mixer
- Measuring Cups
- Measuring Spoons
- Frosting bags
🔪 Instructions
Check out how to make southern banana pudding cake with these simple step-by-step instructions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Cut some parchment paper into circles that can fit at the bottom of your 8 inch cake pans. Spray cake pans with non-stick cooking spray and lay the parchment circles inside. Spray again with cooking spray and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, blend the bananas with an electric mixer until creamy.
Add in the cake mix, eggs, oil, dry pudding mix, and vanilla.
Stir until well mixed. Do not overmix.
Divide the batter between your prepared cake pans.
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted into the center and come out clean.
Once the cakes have finished baking allow them to cool in the cake pans for about 10 minutes before flipping over onto a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.
Allow them to cool on the racks upside down and make sure to remove any parchment paper from the bottom of the cake.
Once the cakes are completely cooled, flip them over onto a cutting board and level the tops with a large bread knife.
Prepare the frosting
In a large mixing bowl, add the cream cheese and powdered sugar.
Cream together until just combined. Do not overmix.
In another large mixing bowl, add cold heavy cream and vanilla.
Beat until stiff peaks form.
Add the cream cheese mixture to the whipped cream.
Beat again until combined. Do not overmix.
Prepare Filling
Make one box of banana instant pudding according to the package directions.
Assembly
Place one topless cake layer in front of you and leave the other off to the side.
Place some frosting into a pastry bag or Ziploc baggie with a corner snipped off. Make a circle around the rim of the top.
Spoon in your cold and chilled pudding. Spread it around so that it fills the circle and is pretty even looking.
Stack the two cakes on top of each other by placing one on top of the pudding topped one.
Try to get them to stand as straight as you can. If needed, place everything into the fridge to chill for one hour so it holds up better. You can also freeze the cake at this point and chill the frosting until ready to use.
When the cakes are stacked and sturdy, pipe the white frosting around the outside where the middles are and go around the cake with a flat leveler or surface (a wooden ruler works okay in a pinch).
Angle it slightly so you're pressing into the cake while removing excess frosting. This should fill in any gaps so the cake is level on the sides.
A first layer of frosting would be called a "crumb layer," and it is meant to be thin and to hold any loose crumbs in place. Let it chill at this point before adding another thicker layer of frosting if desired.
Frost the entire cake with a nice thick layer of white frosting so that it is about ¼ inch thick and you can't see the cake poking through.
Go over it again with your flat leveler as much as needed to get it to look as desired. Don't forget to level out the top.
Press broken cookie crumbs around the outside of the cake to cover the sides.
Top the cake with sliced bananas and whole Nilla wafer cookies just before serving.
I added some leftover salted caramel from my Salted Caramel Banana Pancakes as an additional garnish.
Slice, serve, and enjoy!
🧾 Substitutions
Cake Mix. If desired you can swap out the yellow cake mix for any other flavor. Chocolate or White cake mix would be my go-to favorite options.
Pudding Mix. The banana flavored pudding mix adds a lot of delicious banana flavor into the cake but you can use vanilla pudding in a pinch. Remember that we only want the dry pudding mix inside of the box, not the pudding mix when assembled.
📖 Variations
ALTERNATIVE FROSTING RECIPE:
- In one bowl mix 1 box (3.4 ounces) cheesecake flavored instant pudding with 1 cup of milk. Let sit 5 minutes to set.
- Beat 1 quart of heavy cream until stiff peaks in a large bowl and then add in the pudding mix and beat again until combined.
- This frosting is pipeable and will remain stable/shape holding but will still need to be kept in the fridge for food safety reasons. (Any flavor instant pudding will work, but the white ones will show food coloring better).
🍴 Recipe Tips
If at any point you feel the cake needs added support because it's sliding around, you can use plastic drinking straws (about 2-4) of them in the center of the cake. Trim them to about ¼ inch shorter than the cake and insert them after the cake has been stacked, but before it's been frosted.
This shouldn't be necessary with a simple 2 layer cake, but depending on how full you fill the layers, it could be a nice back-up plan if you plan to transport the cake anywhere.
👩🏻🍳 Storage
Fridge
This cake will keep well for up to 3 or 4 days in the fridge. I recommend covering it in plastic wrap if you cannot keep it in a large airtight container.
Freezer
The cake or slices of cake can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge or at room temperature before eating. Remember that the cookies will soften, and the frosting may sweat if the cake does from the freezer to room temp.
This is normal and fine, but it may not look presentable so I don't recommend freezing a cake before showing it to guests (this is much better for leftovers where presentation doesn't matter).
💭 FAQs
Adding a box of pudding mix to a cake not only helps to strengthen the flavor but it also helps to add moisture to the cake so that it doesn't feel dry. This is thanks to the fats inside of the pudding mix.
I do not recommend keeping this cake out of the fridge for more than 1-2 hours at a time. If the weather is 80F+ one hour is recommended, whereas colder temperatures may let the cake sit out for up to 2 hours. The cream cheese frosting and filling will soften and slide off of the cake after sitting out for too long in the heat, not to mention the food safety risks from letting it sit out.
More great cake recipes to check out soon
- Red White and Blue Poke Cake
- Peaches and Cream Bundt Cake
- Cake Mix Coffee Cake
- Chocolate Pistachio Bundt Cake
📖 Recipe
Southern Banana Pudding Cake
Equipment
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 box Yellow Cake Mix ($1.24)
- 4 Ripe Bananas ($1.00)
- 1 box (3.4oz) Banana Flavored Instant Pudding Mix ($0.98)
- 3 large Eggs ($0.24)
- ¼ cup Vegetable Oil ($0.12)
- 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract ($0.04)
Filling
- 1 box (3.4oz) Banana Flavored Instant Pudding Mix ($0.98)
- 2 cups Milk ($0.38)
Frosting
- 1 ¼ cups Heavy Whipping Cream ($1.24)
- 1 cup Powdered Sugar ($0.23)
- 8 ounce Cream Cheese, softened ($1.98)
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract ($0.04)
- 1 pinch Salt ($0.02)
Decorations
- Nilla Wafer Cookies ($0.42)
- Sliced Ripe Bananas ($0.25)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
- Cut some parchment paper into circles that can fit at the bottom of your 8 inch cake pans. Spray cake pans with non-stick cooking spray and lay the parchment circles inside. Spray again with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl blend the bananas with an electric mixer until creamy.
- Add in the cake mix, eggs, oil, dry pudding mix, and vanilla until well mixed. Do not overmix.
- Divide the batter between your prepared cake pans.
- Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick can be inserted into the center and come out clean.
- Once the cakes have finished baking allow them to cool in the cake pans for about 10 minutes before flipping over onto a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.
- Allow them to cool on the racks upside down and make sure to remove any parchment paper from the bottom of the cake.
- Once the cakes are completely cooled, flip them over onto a cutting board and level the tops with a large bread knife.
Prepare the frosting
- In a large mixing bowl cream together the cream cheese and powdered sugar until just combined. Do not overmix.
- In another large mixing bowl beat the heavy cream and vanilla until stiff peaks form.
- Add the cream cheese mixture to the whipped cream and beat again until combined. Do not overmix.
Prepare Filling
- Make one box of banana instant pudding according to the package directions.
Assembly
- Place one topless cake layer in front of you and leave the other off to the side.
- Place some frosting into a pastry bag or Ziploc baggie with a corner snipped off.
- Make a circle around the rim of the top.
- Spoon in your cold and chilled pudding. Spread it around so that it fills the circle and is pretty even looking.
- Stack the two cakes on top of each other by placing one on top of the pudding topped one.
- Try to get them to stand as straight as you can. If needed, place everything into the fridge to chill for one hour so it holds up better. You can also freeze the cake at this point and chill the frosting until ready to use.
- When the cakes are stacked and sturdy, pipe the white frosting around the outside where the middles are and go around the cake with a flat leveler or surface (a wooden ruler works okay in a pinch).
- Angle it slightly so you're pressing into the cake while removing excess frosting. This should fill in any gaps so the cake is level on the sides.
- A first layer of frosting would be called a "crumb layer" and it is meant to be thin and to hold any loose crumbs in place. Let it chill at this point before adding another thicker layer of frosting if desired.
- Frost the entire cake with a nice thick layer of white frosting so that it is about ¼ inch thick and you can't see the cake poking through. Go over it again with your flat leveler as much as needed to get it to look as desired. Don't forget to level out the top.
- Press broken cookie crumbs around the outside of the cake to cover the sides.
- Top the cake with sliced bananas and whole Nilla wafer cookies just before serving.
- I added some leftover salted caramel from my Salted Caramel Banana Pancakes as an additional garnish.
- Slice, serve, and enjoy!
Notes
- In one bowl mix 1 box (3.4 ounces) cheesecake flavored instant pudding with 1 cup of milk. Let sit 5 minutes to set.
- Beat 1 quart of heavy cream until stiff peaks in a large bowl and then add in the pudding mix and beat again until combined.
- This frosting is pipeable and will remain stable/shape holding but will still need to be kept in the fridge for food safety reasons. (Any flavor instant pudding will work but the white ones will show food coloring better).
Kyle Boyd says
I am so going to make this cake....I'll send pics soon.
Tori says
I just made this cake today for my brothers bday. Everyone loved it. I added chopped up banana into the pudding before I layered the cake. I will definitely make this again. It was a hit!!!