Creme Brulee Biscoff Banana Pudding That Stays Crisp

I torched the top of this at 8pm, took a photo, and by the time everyone had finished dinner the shell had gone soft and syrupy. That's the part nobody mentions when this thing goes viral. The crackly top is a thirty minute window, not something you build in the afternoon and admire later.

Torch it at the table and it's the best banana pudding I've made. Torch it early and you've made a very good banana pudding with a wet sugar puddle on top. Still gets eaten. Just isn't the thing you saw on your phone.

Here's the recipe, then everything I learned making it.

The recipe

Ingredients

• 2 boxes instant vanilla pudding
• 3 cups cold milk
• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 to 5 bananas, sliced
• 1 pack Biscoff cookies
• 1 cup Biscoff cookie butter
• 1/3 cup sugar for the brulee top

How to make it

1. Make the vanilla pudding according to the package and chill. Whip the heavy cream with the powdered sugar and vanilla until fluffy.
2. Layer crushed Biscoff cookies, vanilla pudding, sliced bananas, whipped cream, and melted cookie butter in a glass dish. Repeat until full.
3. Smooth the top, sprinkle an even layer of sugar over it, then carefully torch until golden and caramelized. Let it cool for a minute so that crispy shell forms.
4. Crack the top, scoop it out, and try not to eat the entire thing.

That's the whole thing. Fifteen minutes of actual work, most of it waiting for pudding to set. Everything below is what I'd tell you if you were standing in my kitchen about to make it.

Notes from making it

Three cups of milk for two boxes runs stiffer than the box wants, and that's a good thing here. A pudding you'd happily eat from a bowl is too loose to hold banana coins and whipped cream without sliding into soup by hour three. Stiffer sets firmer, scoops cleaner, and you can actually see the layers through the glass, which is the entire point of building it in glass.

Whip the cream to stiff peaks, not billowy ones. Soft peaks look lovely for about twenty minutes and then start weeping into the cookie layer.

Warm the cookie butter for twenty to thirty seconds in the microwave, just until it pours in a ribbon. Any hotter and it melts a channel straight through the whipped cream and pools at the bottom, which I have done, and which looks like a leak.

One optional change, and it's the one I'd argue for hardest. Instead of smoothing whipped cream on top, finish with a layer of pudding and then a single overlapping layer of banana coins across the whole surface, and sugar that. Whipped cream under a blowtorch deflates and goes slack, and the sugar sinks into it rather than sitting on top and setting. Banana slices give the flame something firm to sit on and caramelize underneath like the top of a bananas foster. If your top came out glossy and collapsed, this is why.

Which torch to buy

Any of these will do the job. The difference is how long it lasts and whether you have to buy fuel separately, because butane is not included with most of them, which catches people out on the day they planned to make this.

If you want the short answer: the Iwatani PRO2 is the best rated kitchen torch on Amazon at 4.6 stars from 2,772 ratings, and it's the one I'd buy. It's about $40, which is more than this one dessert justifies, and it is also the last torch you will buy.

If $40 is silly for a thing you'll use twice a year, get the Kollea instead. It's $16 and it's rated 4.5 from over ten thousand people, which is a better-evidenced number than anything else on this list. I checked all of these in September 2026, and ratings move, so glance at the current number before you buy.

Which sugar to use on top

Make your own superfine by pulsing granulated in a spice grinder for ten seconds. Powdered sugar isn't a substitute, because the cornstarch in it burns.

Thin and even beats thick and generous. Two teaspoons over a six inch circle, tilted and tapped so it settles into a veil rather than drifts. A heavy layer insulates itself, so the top browns while the bottom stays raw and grainy, and by the time you've fixed that the cream underneath has melted.

Can you do this without a kitchen torch?

Not really, and I'd rather say so than sell you a workaround. A broiler needs the dish six inches from an element for several minutes, and everything in this dessert is cold whipped cream and cut banana. It comes out warm and collapsed. A cheap butane torch is about fifteen dollars and it's the whole difference between this recipe and a normal banana pudding.

If you have no torch, there's one honest fallback. Make a dry caramel in a pan, pour it onto parchment in a thin sheet, let it set hard, then crack it into shards and press them into the top just before serving. Different look, same snap, and it holds for hours instead of thirty minutes.

Why did my top turn into syrup?

Because sugar is hygroscopic and it's sitting on something cold and wet. The shell starts pulling moisture out of the pudding the second it sets. On a real creme brulee the custard is dense and the surface is dry, so you get an hour or two. Here you get thirty to forty minutes, less in a humid kitchen.

There's no fix, only timing. Torch it after everyone has sat down.

How do you keep the bananas from going brown?

Cut them at the last possible moment, and toss the slices in a tablespoon of lemon or pineapple juice before they go in. You won't taste it against the cookie butter. Then bury them: it's air contact that browns them, so a banana coin fully sandwiched between pudding and cream stays pale for a day, while the ones pressed against the glass will start to freckle by hour six.

The top layer is the exception, since it's exposed on purpose. Slice those directly onto the surface and torch within a couple of minutes, and the caramelizing hides any color anyway.

How far ahead can you make it?

Three hours in the fridge is a genuine improvement, not just convenience. The cookies go from crunchy to cakey and the layers stop being separate things. Beyond about six hours the bottom cookie layer turns to paste, which some people prefer and I don't.

What to build it in

A wide shallow dish beats a tall trifle bowl here, and this is the one time I'd say that. A deep bowl's walls block the torch angle, so you can't get the flame flat across the middle, and you end up with a browned ring and a pale center. A two quart glass baking dish or a low footed bowl lets you work the whole surface evenly.

Keep the flame moving and keep it off the rim. Cold glass and a direct flame held in one spot is how you crack a dish, and it's a lot easier to avoid than to explain afterward.

Worth making?

Yes, with the caveat that it's a dessert with a performance built into it. You're not making something that sits on a counter looking good all evening. You're making something you crack in front of people, which is a different and slightly more stressful pleasure, and it costs you about fifteen minutes of actual work.

I ate the corner of the test one standing at the counter with the torch still warm. Then I ate the other corner. Plan accordingly.

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