Chocolate Crusted Banana Pudding

This is one of those recipes that was intended to come out a different way, but worked just fine as it was, so I'm sharing it with you anyway!

I had some leftover double chocolate biscotti from one of my baking adventures, and though I love them I can only eat so many and no one else in the family seems to adore biscotti as much as me. So I tried to figure out how I could maybe turn them into something else. I couldn't help but think of a chocolate pie crust - similar to what you would do with Oreo cookies.

I asked my sister what flavor profile she might like, and we settled on banana for the filling! We had a couple ripe bananas so it was excellent timing. We put it together with some thickened cook and serve vanilla pudding and the result was a delicious combination of chocolate cookie crust and tender, comforting pudding.

This doesn't slice up like pie - it works much better to scoop it out with a serving spoon. The pudding mixture could be cooked with less milk to allow for a thicker consistency, if you want to be able to attempt "slices" of pie instead of just scoops of chocolaty based pudding!

Chocolate Crusted Banana Pudding

Ingredients
1 chocolate crumb crust (recipe / instructions below)
1 4.6-oz cook and serve box of Jell-O vanilla pudding
3 cups milk
2 TBS ripe bananas, diced
whipped cream, if desired

Directions

1. Prepare the chocolate crust and set aside to cool.
2. Prepare the Jell-O pudding per package directions using the 3-cups of milk (you could use a little less if you'd like a slightly thicker texture for this recipe).
3. Once it has begun to thicken and you've turned off the heat, stir in the bananas. 
4. Allow pudding to cool to room temperature before spooning into the prepared and cooled crust. Cover with saran wrap and allow to chill for about 3-4 hours in the refrigerator.
5. Scoop out and serve with a dollop of whipped cream if desired. 

Chocolate Crust adapted from Life Love and Sugar

Ingredients
3 cups chocolate biscotti crumbs
5 TBS butter, melted

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Use a food processor to break down the biscotti into fine crumbs until you reach 3 cups worth, drizzle in the melted butter while the food processor is on low.
3. Press the crumbs into a pie plat-e until evenly pressed along the bottom and around the edges.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, then set aside to cool.