Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding

I love to collect recipes.  I am getting a little obsessive about it now -- I have 4 3" 3-ring binders full of recipes that I have found online, in magazines, etc., that I haven't tried yet.  I will have to live to be 135 just to try the ones that I already have, and more are added daily.  The system is that they stay in the binder until I try them.  If they are good, they get copied to a recipe card and go in the box in the kitchen.  If bad, trash can.

I was looking for a new dessert to try when my in-laws were here for Labor Day weekend, and found Paula Deen's "Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding".  Let's just say that it made it to a card.  My husband, unfortunately, did not try it.  He had a bad experience with banana-flavored medicine as a child and can't stand the things now.  But the rest of us loved it, so all's well.

Ingredients:

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies
6-8 bananas, sliced
2 cups milk
1 (5 oz.) box instant French vanilla pudding
1 (8 oz.) pkg cream cheese, softened
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 oz.) container Cool Whip

Line the bottom of a 13x9" dish with 1 bag of cookies.  Voila!  Instant crust.  Can't be easier than that, my friend.

Next, cover the cookies with a layer of sliced bananas.  I just did a single layer, and it only took about 2 bananas, but if you want to use all 6-8 bananas in the recipe, knock yourself out.

Now for the filling.  In one bowl, mix together the 2 cups of milk and the pudding mix (that is, make pudding).  Use an electric mixer to make it creamy and non-lumpy.  In another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk (which is not the same thing as evaporated milk, but should be near it on the shelf).  I had never used condensed milk before, but it is super sticky, so use a long-handled spoon to get it out of the can or be prepared to stick to everything for the rest of the afternoon.

Now fold the Cool Whip into the cream cheese/condensed milk bowl.  To "fold" something means to combine it in such a way that you don't squash all of the air out of the puffy part, which here is the Cool Whip.  So don't just grab a spoon or mixer and manhandle it.  You want to dump the fluffy layer (the Cool Whip) on top of the more dense layer (the cream cheese/condensed milk).  Then take a spatula and slice down the middle, like Moses parting the Red Sea, from top to bottom.  When you get to the bottom,  flip the spatula over to just turn over a bit of the layers.  Give the bowl a quarter turn and repeat, again working from top to bottom.  I know that this seems like a pain, and those of you who are lacking in patience will give up about 2 folds in and just go at it with a spoon, but it really does help keep a fluffy consistency.

Almost done.  Add the cream cheese/condensed milk/Cool Whip mixture to the pudding mixture and stir it all up.  Pour it over the cookies and bananas.  Top with the other bag of cookies.  Try not to curse too much when you realize that some of these cookies are broken and your masterpiece is going to look flawed.  Just remember that broken cookies taste the same as whole ones.

Slide the whole thing in the fridge until you are ready to eat it.  We ended up waiting a day or two before we got to try it and I think that it actually improved the taste.  The cookies had had time to absorb some of the filling and had softened a bit, tasting just like a nice buttery crust.

This recipe was super-easy and didn't involve heating up the kitchen with the oven.  It is also a sneaky way to get bananas down a picky 2-year-old if you are desperate and don't care that they are covered in pudding.  I think that it would be interesting to try with Girl Scout shortbread cookies instead of the Chessmen, but you do whatever sounds good to you.  Enjoy!