Easy Pudding Cake Filling

This thick and stable vanilla pudding is perfect for filling cakes, eclairs, cream puffs, donuts and more. Using this shortcut gives you Bavarian cream style filling in just a few minutes!

It only take 3 ingredients and a few minutes to have a creamy and flavorful filling for all sorts of desserts. It is stable enough to not smoosh out between cake layers, or could easily be piped into donuts or eclairs.  It is perfectly creamy and could be made a variety of flavors if desired.

I have been really enjoying filling cakes lately.  Adding filling gives more fun textures and flavors to a cake.  It all started when I was testing cakes for my brother’s wedding.

Not only did I test different white cake recipes, I tested lots of frosting and filling combinations as well.  There was chocolate buttercream with raspberry filling.  It was good, but the cake wasn’t quite what I had in mind.

Then there was a different cake recipe filled with raspberry and Italian meringue buttercream. It was delicious with all of that fluffy frosting. I filled the second tier of that cake with homemade lemon curd and frosted it with the perfect summertime buttercream.

The final cake had two layers of lemon curd, one layer of raspberry filling and that perfect buttercream.  It was very well received by everyone, especially the wedding cake lovers in my family.

It also made me convert to fillings. Now I want to fill all of the cakes! I love how it really adds a whole new dimension to the cake. Fillings give you the chance to add more flavors, textures and height too!

This pudding filling quickly became one of our favorites. We normally make it with vanilla pudding, but you could make it with any flavor you like!

Carlee’s Tips and Tricks:

Both whipping cream and instant pudding work better with cold temperatures. Make sure your cream is as cold as possible.

You can also pre-chill the bowl and your beaters, though that isn’t necessary.

Cakes filled with pudding are best stored in the refrigerator. Pull the cake out an hour or so before serving to let it come to room temperature and let the guests ooh and ah over your work!

This is stable enough you don’t really need a frosting dam to keep it in place, however I still like to use one to keep the outside frosting cleaner. I think it makes the crumb coat easier as well.

For another simple creamy recipe that uses instant pudding as its secret weapon, try making eclair cake. It has layers of fluffy pudding, graham crackers, and fudge icing in a tasty no bake dessert.