Banana Pudding Poke Cake

Before Easter my group at work had a potluck, as you know I use this as a chance to test any new recipes that have been running around on my pin boards or things that I have really wanted to try. This time I opted for the Banana Pudding Poke Cake, seen here. The picture of the finally dessert made my mouth water every single time that I saw it so it seemed that this was going to be amazing.

I followed the directions to the best of my ability but you never know how that is going to go since some of them were just a tad vague but that happens. For the most part it was really easy, my pokes into the cake don't look nearly as good as hers did but that is OK because I poured pudding over it. From there it was very simple and relatively easy. I topped mine with crushed vanilla wafers because it was cute.

worst poke cake job ever

The group thought that it was pretty good. I think most of them liked it. I, however, hated it. This was one of the worst things that I have made in a long time. I don't know if I don't like the concept or if I don't like this version. Here is what I really didn't like
-banana pudding smells like death. When I opened the packages it was horrible, they smell like fake bananas and I don't like that smell. To me it smells like chemicals, apparently that really bothers me. Who knew.

Smelled terrible

-To me it was dry cake with weird pudding on top. Not a good combo. This does suggest that I might be able to make a different version that would be better.

I ended up tossing the rest of the cake because it just wasn't good enough to share with others. I will probably try another version at another time, maybe a yellow cake with chocolate pudding. Who knows this was not all the way to a fail but it wasn't nearly as good as I had hoped it would be.

Do you like poke cakes?