Shark Week is so popular. Sharks can potentially eat you if you go into their home (the ocean), but if you watch them from the comfort of your home, you’re totally safe. So you can get up close and personal without risking a lost limb. And what better way to enjoy Shark Week than with this Shark Pudding Cups recipe.
These Shark Pudding Cups are so easy to make and assemble. Plus, if you have kids, they can each make their own shark snack cups and crumble their own cookies on top. That’s a lot of fun for them.
What’s better is these Shark Pudding Cups are basically Banana Pudding in a cup form.
Speaking of Banana Pudding, that’s such a southern thing. We had a party at our house in North Carolina and invited all of Pete’s then-coworkers. Of the dozen women who came, three brought Banana Pudding.
Three.
That’s 25% of the people who could have brought anything and decided to go with Banana Pudding.
Banana Pudding isn’t just a bowl of pudding, contrary to its name. It’s actually layers of custard, vanilla wafer cookies, and sliced bananas finished with a whipped topping. These Shark Pudding Cups basically have all those elements … plus sharks.
If you have extra bananas after making these Shark Pudding Cups, and you need something to make with them, check out all of our Budget-Friendly Banana Recipes.
Shark Pudding Cups Recipe
Shark Pudding Cups Ingredients:
- 1 3.4 oz box of banana cream pudding
- 2 cups whole milk
- 5 bananas
- 8 oz. whipped topping
- Vanilla wafer cookies
- Shark gummy candies
How To Make Shark Pudding Cups:
Beat the banana cream pudding mix and cold milk for two minutes. You can do this by hand with a whisk or with a hand mixer. Make sure that the ingredients are completely combined.
Add the whipped topping into the pudding mixture and stir until combined.
Slice the bananas and gently stir them into the banana pudding mixture.
Fill a clear cup with the banana pudding mixture. Leave a little bit of room at the top.
Crush the vanilla wafer cookies to make “sand” and put the “sand” on top of the pudding in the cup.
Add a few pieces of shark gummy candy on top of the sand.
Serve while you’re watching Shark Week, Jaws, or listening to Baby Shark for the eight millionth time today.
Shark Pudding Cups: Frequently Asked Questions
We use banana cream pudding in these Shark Pudding Cups because we also made this recipe double as traditional southern Banana Pudding … just with sharks.
But, if you don’t like bananas, you don’t have to use banana cream pudding. You can use vanilla pudding or coconut cream pudding instead.
Vanilla pudding and coconut cream pudding have a similar color to banana pudding, and the color is pretty important. You want to make it look like these sharks have made landfall, so yellow or yellow-ish, pudding is key.
So if you don’t like banana pudding, or don’t have any handy, and instead have a package of a yellow-ish pudding instead, you can use that.
Making pudding from box pudding mix really only takes a handful of minutes. But you can make these even easier if you use a Snack Pack to make these.
A Snack Pack, if you don’t know, is a pre-made pudding cup. Just open the cup and it’s ready to eat.
If you wanted to make Shark Snack Packs, just open the top and discard it. Crumble up vanilla wafers on the top. Then, add the gummy sharks on top of the vanilla wafer cookies.
Super simple.
If you don’t have vanilla wafer cookies, you can use graham crackers in these Shark Pudding Cups instead.
You could also use brown cane sugar. That looks like large grains of sand and are really sweet. Plus, they give the texture of sand too, if you’re looking for that.
Shark Pudding Cup Variations:
Jello Shark Cups
Don’t like pudding? Don’t worry. Instead of using banana cream pudding (or any other yellow-ish pudding, like we discussed above), just use Jello.
You have two good options, as far colors go. Island Pineapple Jello is yellow, so it would look very similar to the Shark Pudding Cups in our post.
If you don’t like pineapple, you could choose Berry Blue Jello instead. In that case, the shark would be swimming in water, rather than terrorizing the sand, and that works too.
If you do decide to go with Jello instead of putting, you do have to follow a little bit of a different process.
The quick version: dissolve Jello in a cup of hot water, until the Jello is dissolved. Mix in a cup of whipped topping. Stir until everything is combined. Spoon into cups. Decorate the top with graham crackers, vanilla wafer cookies, and/or brown cane sugar, plus the gummy sharks. Put the cups in either the fridge or the freezer (depending on how much time you have) until the Jello has set.
Underwater Adventure Shark Pudding Cups
This Shark Sand Cups recipe calls for making Berry Blue Jello with one cup of hot water to dissolve the Jello mix, then one cup of cold water.
Put the gummy shark candies at the bottom of a clear cup. Very carefully pour the Jello mix on top of the sharks so that you can see the sharks through the Jello. You can stop partially through and add more gummy sharks if you want.
Beachy Shark Pudding Cups
Let the sharks have more of a beach day with these Beachy Shark Pudding Cups. Make the Shark Pudding Cups according to the recipe above, but add a cocktail umbrella sticking out from the top. That will look like a beach umbrella and really make the sand look like sand.
Ocean and Sand Pudding Cups
If you’re feeling creative, you could turn these into Ocean and Sand Pudding Cups. Make two types of pudding: any yellow pudding and any blue pudding. Layer blue pudding at the bottom of a clear cup (for the ocean), then yellow pudding on top (for the sand). Decorate with cookies or sugar and gummy sharks.
Want more beach-themed snacks?
If you want more beach-themed snacks to serve with your Shark Pudding Cups, check out these other beach-themed recipes.
Shark Pudding Cups
Shark Pudding Cups are such a fun summer treat. It's basically a Banana Pudding Dessert with graham cracker crumbles and shark candies.
Ingredients
- 1 3.4 oz box of banana cream pudding
- 2 cups whole milk
- 5 bananas
- 8 oz. whipped topping
- Vanilla wafer cookies
- Shark gummy candies
Instructions
- Beat the banana cream pudding mix and cold milk for two minutes. You can do this by hand with a whisk or with a hand mixer. Make sure that the ingredients are completely combined.
- Add the whipped topping and stir until combined.
- Slice the bananas and stir them into the banana pudding mixture.
- Fill a clear cup with the banana pudding mixture.
- Crush the vanilla wafer cookies to make “sand” and put it on top of the pudding in the cup.
- Add a few pieces of shark candy on top of the sand.
Nutrition Information
Yield
10Serving Size
1Amount Per Serving Calories 178Total Fat 7gSaturated Fat 6gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 1gCholesterol 1mgSodium 59mgCarbohydrates 28gFiber 2gSugar 18gProtein 1g
Have you made these Shark Pudding Cups? How did it go?
Rebecca
Wednesday 15th of July 2020
I love this!
creativejewishmom/sara
Tuesday 14th of July 2020
The perfect summer surprise for the kiddos.
Michele Somerville
Thursday 9th of July 2020
Easy and good looking desert. Shared to my Facebook page.
Robyn Garner
Thursday 9th of July 2020
So sweet and simple