Banana Pudding made with chopped Moon Pies and a decadent filling of cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla pudding.
Moon Pie Banana Pudding
Moon Pie Banana Pudding. No I haven't lost my mind!
Nor have I thrown my Homemade Custard Banana Pudding to the wayside either... but, let me just back up here for a second.
As I write this, New Year's Eve has passed recently with a dropping of a giant illuminated Moon Pie in Mobile, Alabama, and with Mardi Gras upon us, pretty soon they will be flying off of floats all over the Gulf Coast region.
The rest of you around the country are probably thinking "what the heck is she talkin' about?" Why, yes - Moon Pies! They are a well-loved southern icon, that's for sure.
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Moon Pies are a marshmallow sandwich cookie originating from Chattanooga Bakery in Tennessee.
Word is, in the early 1900s, a bakery salesman, Earl Mitchell, Sr. was visiting a bakery that catered to coal miners, and spoke with some of the miners who told him they were looking for a workday snack.
It needed to be one that would be solid and filling and easy to carry for the times they weren't able to break for lunch. When Mitchell asked how big, a miner held his hands up to frame the shape of the moon, and said "about that big."
Later, when Mitchell returned to the bakery, he noticed some of the workers had created a snack by dipping graham crackers into marshmallow, and then laying them out in the sun to harden.
He married those two ideas together, added another cookie, dipped them in chocolate, tested samples, and the Moon Pie brand was born! Paired up with a 10-ounce RC Cola for only ten cents, it quickly became the south's working man's lunch, and even inspired a country song "Give Me an RC and a Moon Pie" in the 50s.
So anyway, for awhile now, I've been eyeballing Paula Deen's Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding because I liked her idea of combining whipped cream, sweetened condensed milk, and cream cheese with instant banana pudding.
I mean that's jazzing it up for sure, if you're not gonna go to the trouble of making a homemade custard.
And then I saw Southern Living's Over the Moon Banana Pudding from way back in 2003, so I took part of the concepts from both, changed things up a little bit, and married the two together.
The result was a delicious, over-the-top, and extremely rich banana pudding, perfect for a potluck, church supper, as a funeral food dessert, and fits right in our Sunday Suppers series.
Now. On to this decadently rich marriage of Moon Pies and Banana Pudding.
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For this recipe, I used the Double Decker Chocolate MoonPies (#ad), but the regular Moon Pies would work also. If you can't find MoonPies in your area, you can order them online.
You start by mixing a block of softened cream cheese with a can of sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated!) and stir until blended. In a separate bowl, whisk the pudding mix with the milk until blended, then combine the two.
Put about a cup into the bottom of a bowl. Take 3 of the Moon Pies and cut them up. Mine were a bit crumbly, but don't worry about that. We're gonna save those crumbles for the garnish. Put the crumbles in a zipper storage bag and set aside.
Throw a layer of the Moon Pies on top of the pudding in the bowl and add a layer of 3 sliced bananas on top of that.
Pour half of the remaining pudding on top of that and repeat the layers with the Moon Pies and the remaining bananas. Top with whipped cream or Cool Whip, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Just before serving, sprinkle the reserved crumbs all over the top, and if desired, garnish with a few extra Moon Pie wedges.
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