There are those of us who start off the new year with a newly acquired diet book, an upgraded gym membership and big, big dreams. Then there are those of us who know that the true path to happiness is through self-care self-indulgence.
For the latter group, I give you peanut butter banana pudding.
Not convinced? Does it not sound decadent enough? Just take a look at this video from Delish, which literally made me drool:
This layered dessert incorporates vanilla pudding, sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, Nutter Butter cookies and melted peanut butter in addition to those bananas, making it extra creamy. Because the trifle includes four bananas, I’m allowing myself to pretend it’s a health food.
For a lighter version, the Minimalist Baker has a recipe for vegan peanut butter banana pudding that looks just as yummy, and that fills up an entire baking pan. Instead of Nutter Butters, she uses vegan vanilla wafers.
She also nixes the sweetened condensed milk and heavy cream in favor of coconut milk. And instead of the melted peanut butter, she gets that peanut butter taste from vegan peanut butter pudding. From the looks of it, I imagine it tastes just as good:
If you don’t give a fig whether or not your dish is vegan, but you like the idea of using lighter wafers, the blogger from Plain Chicken has a recipe for peanut butter banana pudding that maintains the use of peanut butter and sweetened condensed milk, but uses Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies instead of Nutter Butters. This recipe also incorporates cream cheese, which I always consider to be a harbinger of delicious things to come.
If pudding isn’t your thing, but you love the banana-and-nut-butter flavor combo, you could always make these frozen banana bites.
But who are we kidding? After making the recipes above, let’s all just relax with some fried peanut butter. No judgments.