Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Tart

A peanut butter cookie crust is topped with sliced bananas, a layer of peanut butter pudding, a layer of banana pudding, and a drizzle of melted peanut butter! It’s decadent, but light too!

To all my peanut butter and banana loving friends out there – this dessert is for you. I love peanut butter and banana together. Well, I love peanut butter with just about everything, but I think we’ve established that. But seriously, I really love peanut butter and banana together. One of my favorite smoothies features this combo, and it’s one that I make all the time.

Of all the things that peanut butter pairs well with, banana might actually be my favorite. While I know the more popular opinion is peanut butter + chocolate, and I’m a big fan of that – don’t get me wrong, but I still think I love it most with banana.

Since I love banana pudding (my mother-in-law makes the best!), and I love peanut butter with banana, I set out to make a peanut butter and banana pudding dessert. In the process, the idea morphed into a tart. Why? Just because I don’t make a whole lot of tarts and I wanted to mix things up in the kitchen that day, and because I have a brand new tart pan. That’s it. The evolution of this idea was no more profound that just feeling like making a tart and using a new pan. There you go. A Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Tart Recipe.

Easier than it sounds, this simple tart features a peanut butter cookie crust, slices of fresh bananas, a layer of peanut butter pudding, a layer of banana pudding, and a drizzle of peanut butter on top for good measure. Whew. Sounds like a lot of work. I assure you, it’s really not.

The crust is made from crushed up peanut butter cookies (!!!). This dessert isn’t technically no-bake, but it only requires about 5 minutes of baking time if you use store-bought peanut butter cookies to make the crust. So it’s a great dessert to make in the summertime when you don’t want to be stuck indoors around a hot oven. It whips up quite quickly because it’s mostly a bit of stirring by hand. I made the peanut butter cookies from scratch because this recipe is ridiculously simple, but store-bought cookies definitely work just fine.

The crust is crunchy and rich with lots of peanut butter cookie crumb goodness. The fillings are creamy and luscious and silky, with loads of banana and peanut butter flavor. A layer of sliced bananas provides authentic banana flavor and breaks up the creamy puddings with a little texture.

If you love the pairing of peanut butter and banana (you do, right???), this Peanut Butter Banana Pudding Tart is a little bit of heaven on earth!