Tips for Recipe Success:

• Choose the best container. Use wide-mouth cups or jars, which are easy to fill and eat from. If you are making your banana puddings ahead of time, be sure the jars or cups you choose have air-tight covers. I love the half-pint wide-mouth jars from Kerr _{[affiliate link]}. They seal tightly and can be used over and over again. With the lids on, they can be stacked to store, and they’re easy to carry around whether your party is indoors or out.
• Protect your banana slices. Be sure your banana layers are fully sealed with pudding mixture right to the edge of the jar. It also helps to use bananas that are just ripe. Overripe bananas will brown much more quickly.
• Choose the right cookie. If making the dessert jars ahead of time, use a cookie that will hold up to the moisture of the bananas and pudding over the time they’ll be stored. Nilla Wafers are not a good choice for storing for more than a few hours, in my opinion. They get too soft and even soggy. That texture is a matter of personal preference, but I prefer the Dublin shortbread cookies. They stay firmer and still have a pleasant cookie texture after two to three days in the fridge. I purchase them at Walmart in the cookie aisle.
• Leave time for the dessert to set fully. Allow enough time for your banana pudding dessert cups to set in the fridge. The pudding will be soft set and ready to serve almost immediately, but for the best banana pudding cup texture, give this dessert at least an hour in the fridge.
• Choose the right pudding mix. If you have trouble finding banana instant pudding mix, you can use vanilla instant pudding mix instead. Preparing homemade banana pudding cups as quickly as this recipe intends requires the use of instant pudding mix. The cook-and-serve style of pudding takes longer to prepare, cool and set.