I love trying new things in the kitchen! I have never used a culinary torch, but I had been dying to get one. So when Jo Chef offered me a culinary torch for a review of their product I happily obliged. Besides just a review I thought I would combine it with a recipe! I thought a Banana Pudding Mini Pie recipe with a meringue topping would be just the thing to try the torch out on.
My recipe is a little different than your standard banana pudding recipe. I added cream cheese and vanilla cake mix because who doesn’t like sugar on sugar. I’ve had a mixed relationship with meringue toppings. I’ve had pies where I don’t think they really mixed it enough or added weird things to it. A good meringue is simple and fully incorporated and mine was just that. The browning with the torch also brought out my inner pyromaniac that I didn’t know I had 😊 haha.
The Jo Chef torch worked great for what I needed it to do and browned the meringue perfectly! It didn’t leave any weird fuel like taste and was a lot of fun to work with. If you’re in the market for a butane culinary torch I would recommend it. Furthermore, for less than $40 its basically a mini flame thrower and that’s a lot of fun too 🤣.

Banana Pudding Mini Pie
Equipment
Ingredients
Pudding
- 3.4 oz vanilla Jell-O pudding 1 packet
- 2 C whole milk
- 14 oz sweetened condensed milk 1 can
- 4 oz cream cheese softened
- 1 C vanilla cake box mix
Crust
- 1 stick salted butter melted
- 2 C vanilla wafer crumbs
- 1/2 T white sugar
- 1/2 T brown sugar
Meringue
- 4 large egg whites
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
- 1/2 C sugar
Toppings
- bananas
- Nilla wafers
Instructions
Pudding
- Beat pudding mix and milk with a hand mixer for ~ 2-5 minutes or until soft-set.
- Add in your sweetened condensed milk and mix until combined.
- Add in your cream cheese and mix until combined.
- Add your vanilla cake mix and mix until combined.
Crust
- Combine the ingredients in a bowl until fully incorporated.
Build Them
- Press your crust into the bottom of either a muffin tin (~1 heaping T) or a ramekin (~1/2 C).
- Layer your mini pies with your desired bananas, pudding, and Nilla wafers.
- Refrigerate while you make your meringue.
Meringue
- Put all of your ingredients into a bowl and mix with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form (~12 minutes).
- Top your mini pies with your meringue*. You can refrigerate this if you like.
- Use your culinary torch to brown the meringue.
- ENJOY!