Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Pudding

Have you been searching for a delicious picnic treat???  If so look no further!!!  Peanut Butter and Chocolate always make any occasion a little sweeter and dreamier!!!  I love summertime because they come with promises for many picnic opportunities with my sweet hubby.  When we go on picnics I like to add a special cute dessert for each of us.  When I stumbled upon this recipe from Bakerella I knew I had found the perfect treat for our romantic picnic dessert!  Of course I made a few changes to the original recipe because I like to kick things up just a bit!  If you love these darling jar labels you can click on the link below recipe to get your copy from Bakerella.

PS.  This recipe makes 4 mini servings.  So eat one on your picnic and save one for later. Trust me you are going to want two all to yourself!!!  

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Pudding

30 vanilla wafers or Nutter Butters (the peanut butter cookies will give it more of a peanut butter kick, which I think is yummy!!!  you could also use half wafers and half Nutter Butters too)
3 Tablespoons melted butter
2 Tablespoons sugar

1- 1 1/2 cups mini chocolate chips
1/3 cup peanut butter, melted

2 – 3.4 oz packages vanilla pudding mix
2 cups cold milk
8 oz. container COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed in refrigerator

4 oz cream cheese at room temperature (adding this to your vanilla pudding custard will make it that much better!!!)

Nutter Butters, about 16 broken in small pieces
3 medium bananas
lemon juice (place some juice in a spray bottle for easier use)

4 – 1 pint glass jars with lids (look for cute ones!!!)

Crush the vanilla wafers or Nutter Butters in a food processor or a blender.   Add sugar and melted butter and stir together until a little crumbly (mixture should not be dry, if it is add a little more butter).  Press the crumbs into the bottom of the cute glass jars.  

Slice bananas and spray them with lemon juice to help prevent them from turning brown too soon.  Layer the banana cookies over the crust.  

Make the pudding by combining pudding mixes with milk and softened cream cheese and beat with a mixer or wire whisk for two minutes.  (tip:  don't use your kitchen aid stand mixer for this because the whipping blade can't reach the bottom of the bowl leaving your cream cheese all clumpy)  Than slowly fold COOL WHIP Whipped Topping into the pudding. Don’t over mix.  Layer the pudding over the bananas. 

Melt peanut butter in the microwave until smooth (about 30 seconds). Sprinkle several mini chips over pudding and drizzle melted peanut butter on top of chips. 

Layer broken up Nutter Butters over peanut butter.  

Create one more layer starting with the bananas, pudding, chips, peanut butter and top with the Nutter Butters pieces. 

Refrigerate for a few hours before serving.

Notes:  For those of you who might not like something here or there in this recipe, go ahead and change it up to your liking.  This is a versatile recipe you can do anything with it! Add strawberries, eliminate the peanut butter, add more chocolate, use a different cookie, or omit the crust altogether.  Experiment and see what yumminess you can come up with!  If you don't want to mess with the mini containers you can layer this in a pretty trifle dish as well.  

Inspiration from Bakerella...Go to her pdf page to get the cute printable for the jar labels!!!  click here --> for labels