Cooking with Ease by Melissa Tate: Easter Banana Pudding Cups

ROCKWALL, TX – April 1, 2021 – It feels like Easter 2020 was a lifetime ago and yet, we have only lived one year in that amount of time. I remember last year we were all still filled with immense uncertainty. Churches scrambling to find ways to reach their congregation without meeting in person, shelves at the store packed with all sorts of Easter items and absolutely no essentials. My family and I ended up going to an Easter drive thru at our church. It was fun. It was creative. But it was not the same. As was so much we witnessed last year.

In 2020, numbers were up in July, I was sick on Thanksgiving, my mom was sick on Christmas. Easter is the first holiday in a full year that my family will all gather safely with everyone, healthy and vaccinated. I am ecstatic. I have seen my family the entire year but we have not celebrated a holiday together. With a big, traditional meal. All at the same table with children running around with glee.

We will be making all of our Easter favorites: ham, potato salad, pea salad, roasted carrots, deviled eggs, and all the desserts. I plan to make my mom’s traditional coconut cake, Evan’s favorite carrot cake, Micah’s favorite eclair cake (which I shared the recipe for in July 2019) and then, a few small desserts that are made for pure pleasure. We don’t need this many desserts but we deserve them! It’s a celebration. More than just a celebration of the Easter bunny and Easter eggs. A celebration of the Promise. The Promise that the sun will rise in the morning, the grass will grow in the spring, the normalcy of gatherings will return.

And with all of that, I am making Mini Banana Pudding Cups, inside plastic Easter eggs. They are cute and easy and perfect for a gathering where we should still be a mindful of all the hands touching all the things. These Mini Banana Pudding Cups are the perfect single serving dessert for any Easter gathering. The recipe is my mom’s banana pudding but you could also just use a boxed pudding and it would be just as cute.