Save This Recipe
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
This Church Cake is one of those no-fuss desserts that disappears before you can even set the serving spoon down. A banana muffin base, creamy vanilla pudding and cream cheese layer, crushed pineapple, and a thick cloud of Cool Whip — all chilled together until the flavors meld into something truly special. Make it the night before and you’re basically done.
Why You’ll Love It
- Make-ahead friendly — it actually gets better overnight in the fridge, which means one less thing to worry about Sunday morning
- Feeds a crowd — a full 9×13 serves 12 to 15 people easily, and it travels well
- No fancy equipment needed — just two bowls, a hand mixer, and a baking dish
- That pineapple layer is everything — it soaks slightly into the cake and brightens the whole thing in a way you won’t expect
- Jiffy mix does the heavy lifting — the banana muffin base comes together in minutes and gives the cake a soft, light crumb without any extra effort
My mother-in-law used to bring something like this to every church potluck we ever attended — I want to say it was sometime in the late nineties, or maybe early two-thousands, honestly the years blur together when you’ve got little kids underfoot. She called it something different. I can’t even remember what now. Something with “fluff” in the name, or maybe “cloud.” She was not a woman who wrote her recipes down, which, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize is genuinely one of the cruelest things a good cook can do to the people who love them.
I spent a few years trying to recreate it from memory — from her memory, really, since every time I’d ask her she’d say “oh, just a little of this and a little of that” like that was helpful. She’s been gone about six years now, and I still make something close to what I think she made, and it still doesn’t taste quite right to me. It probably never will. That’s the thing about food memory — you’re always chasing something that never existed exactly the way you remember it.
Anyway. Church Cake.
This version uses Jiffy banana muffin mix as the base, which I know sounds like a shortcut — and it is, but it’s the kind of shortcut that actually works. The banana flavor is mild enough that it doesn’t announce itself too aggressively; it just gives the whole cake a soft, slightly sweet backbone that holds up well under all those cold creamy layers. My friend Deborah swears she can taste the banana and it bothers her, but Deborah also puts raisins in things that should not have raisins, so I don’t take her word as final on these matters.
A few notes on ingredients before we get into it
The Jiffy banana muffin mix — yes, two boxes. Don’t try to stretch it with one, the cake will be too thin and won’t have enough structure once it’s chilled. I’ve done it. Learned my lesson.
For the cream cheese, let it come fully to room temperature. I mean fully — not twenty minutes on the counter, but an hour, maybe more. If it’s still cold in the middle when you try to beat it, you’ll end up with little lumps in your pudding layer and no amount of folding is going to fix that. Ask me how I know.
The pudding is the 6-ounce box, instant vanilla. I’ve tried the sugar-free version and it works fine if that matters to you, though the texture is slightly thinner. I’ve also tried cheesecake-flavored pudding once and it was good, actually — a little richer. Might try that again.
Cool Whip needs to be fully defrosted. This sounds obvious but I have absolutely spread partially frozen Cool Whip over a cake and it does not spread evenly and then you have to wait for it to thaw and by then you’ve already messed up the pudding layer trying to fix it. Just take it out of the freezer the night before.
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 2 (7 oz) boxes Jiffy banana muffin mix
- 2 eggs
- ⅔ cup milk
For the topping:
- 1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple, drained well — I press mine with the back of a spoon in the strainer for a minute or two
- 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, room temperature
- 1 (6 oz) box instant vanilla pudding mix
- 3 cups cold milk
- 1 (16 oz) container Cool Whip, fully defrosted
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease your 9×13 dish — I use butter and a paper towel, same as always, though cooking spray works fine too.
Stir the muffin mix, eggs, and milk together in a large bowl until just combined. Don’t overmix. There’ll be lumps and that’s fine — Jiffy doesn’t need to be beaten smooth. Pour it into your baking dish and spread it out to the corners, then bake for 25 to 30 minutes. You want a toothpick to come out clean and the top to be lightly golden. Let it cool completely before you do anything else. This is not negotiable. If the cake is even a little warm, the pineapple will get watery and the whole topping will slide around. I usually bake mine in the morning and finish it in the afternoon.
Once the cake is fully cooled, beat your cream cheese in a large bowl until it’s smooth and fluffy — a minute or two with a hand mixer. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pudding mix and cold milk until it thickens up, about two minutes. Then fold the pudding into the cream cheese. It’ll come together into this thick, pale, very good-smelling mixture that I have absolutely eaten straight from the bowl with a spoon. No judgment.
Spread the drained pineapple over the cake first, all the way to the edges. Then spread the cream cheese pudding mixture evenly over the pineapple. Then the Cool Whip on top of that. Get it as smooth as you can — I use an offset spatula but a regular butter knife works.
Refrigerate for at least an hour, though two is better, and overnight is best. Cover it with plastic wrap once it’s set up a little so the Cool Whip doesn’t dry out around the edges.
Variations
My daughter adds a layer of sliced bananas between the pineapple and the pudding, which makes it taste more intentionally banana-forward and honestly is a good idea if you have ripe ones sitting on the counter. I’ve seen versions with mandarin oranges instead of pineapple — I tried that once and liked it fine but missed the pineapple. There’s also a version floating around that uses yellow cake mix as the base instead of the Jiffy, which would be good but different. More dense. Less of that subtle banana note.
If you want to make it a little more dressed up for presentation, some people top it with toasted coconut or crushed vanilla wafers. I’ve done the coconut. It’s a nice touch but the cake doesn’t need it.
Storage
Keep it covered in the refrigerator. It holds up well for three days, maybe four, though the Cool Whip starts to weep a little by day three and the pineapple layer gets softer. Still good, just less pretty. I wouldn’t freeze it — the texture of the cream cheese layer gets grainy when it thaws and the Cool Whip goes flat.
If you’re transporting it, keep it cold until the last minute. I put mine in a shallow cooler with an ice pack underneath the dish. It’s traveled many miles this way without incident.
One last thing — this cake is genuinely better the next day. I know I already said that, but I want to say it again because it’s the kind of thing that’s easy to doubt until you’ve actually experienced it. The pineapple settles in, the pudding firms up, everything melds. Make it Saturday. Bring it Sunday. Come home with an empty dish.
That’s the whole point.
Church Cake
Ingredients
- 2 packages (7 oz each) Jiffy banana muffin mix
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cup milk
- 20 oz crushed pineapple drained
- 8 oz cream cheese room temperature
- 6 oz instant vanilla pudding mix
- 3 cups cold milk
- 16 oz Cool Whip defrosted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- In a large bowl, mix the banana muffin mixes, eggs, and 2/3 cup milk until just combined.
- Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake for 25–30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Allow the cake to cool completely in the pan.
- In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the pudding mix and 3 cups milk until smooth.
- Fold the pudding mixture into the cream cheese until well blended.
- Spread the drained crushed pineapple evenly over the cooled cake.
- Spread the pudding and cream cheese mixture evenly over the pineapple layer.
- Spread the Cool Whip evenly over the pudding layer.
- Chill the cake for 1–2 hours or up to overnight before serving.