Banana Pudding Poke Cake

There are two camps regarding bringing treats for Wednesday morning bible study - sweets or savory. It breaks up like this - everyone in the group outdoes themselves cooking up some kind of marvelous cake, bar, or cookie...and then when it's Millie's week she comes with something healthy. Poor dear girl fights a losing battle trying to get this group of ladies to care about calories, fat grams, and carbs.

When it's my turn to pony up with something for the group, I do consider following Millie's excellent example - at least until insecurity sets in and I wonder how folks would receive my quiche, egg casserole or whatever else is both healthy or appropriate for a morning bible study. What if they don't like what I bring? What if it's not hot enough when I serve it? Oh so many ways to mess up! Meanwhile, there's hardly a way to fail with something as standard and easy as a cake or other form of sweet.

Maybe next time I'll be brave and try something savory for our group. When Millie moves, I might even designate myself as the heir to healthy and start bringing the type of hot, wholesome foods she is so good at making. But until then, I guess I'll just keep on showing up with cakes like this one.

I know poke cakes used to be super popular but I think this might be the first one I've ever made. It's kind of fun, in a destructive way, to poke big ole' holes in a cake and then have it be ok, when filled with the pudding. It seems to me that punching holes in a cake so you can insert filling could be construed as the lazy man's way of doing lava cakes. Back in the late 70's and 80's, when poke cakes were all the rage, no one I knew had ever heard of a lava cake so perhaps the humble poke cake led the way for a more elevated lava cake? Whatever the etiology, the Wednesday gals loved this cake and, surprisingly, acted like they'd never heard of a poke cake. Did the craze only hit California?  I got credit for bringing something yummy as well as "unusual".

With the pudding and whipped topping, you wind up with a very moist and light tasting cake. And since it's one of those cake types that actually seems to taste better the next day, you can make it ahead of time and then, if you're lucky, have some left over to keep eating for a few days afterward.

Banana Pudding Poke Cake

Ingredients:
1  box yellow cake mix
Ingredients needed to make cake (eggs, oil & water)
2 (3.4 oz.) packages instant banana pudding
4 cups milk
1 (8 oz.) tub frozen whipped topping (COOL WHIP), thawed
20 vanilla wafers, crushed

 Directions:
Prepare cake mix according to package directions for a 9×13 cake. Once cake comes out of the oven, allow it to cool for just a couple of minutes. Then, with a wooden spoon handle or some other similarly-sized object, begin poking holes in the cake.
You want the holes to be fairly big so that the pudding has plenty of room to get down in the cake. Be sure to poke down to the bottom of the cake.
In a bowl,whisk together instant pudding with 4 cups milk. Stir until all the lumps are gone. Let pudding sit for just about 2 minutes so it has just slightly begun to thicken but not fully set.  It should still be easily pourable.
Pour pudding over cake. Taking care to get it into the holes as much as possible.
 Spread it all out and using the back of the spoon gently push pudding down into the holes
Put the pudding into the fridge to set and cool. Once your cake has completely cooled, spread on whipped topping.
If you haven’t done so already, crush your vanilla wafers. I just place mine in a ziploc bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Leave some of the pieces big. It’s nice to have a bit of a crunch when you eat the cake.
Spread crushed wafers onto the top of the cake. You can do this part immediately before serving the cake if you like. This will ensure the wafers are crunchy when you serve it.
Serve with freshly sliced bananas. Keep refrigerated.