Not Your Mama's Banana Pudding (Paula Deene Recipe)

A couple of summer's ago we had dinner with another young couple and they happened to bring one of the most wonderful, decadent desserts that I've ever, ever had!! It was one of Paula Deene's recipe (am the only one that when I hear her name I automally say in my head, "it's butter ya'll"? Just curious) so it shouldn't surprise you that it's a small slice of heaven. The real kicker is that I'm NOT a banana dessert person. I think bananas are a piece of healthy fruit that I eat once a day and with a sandwich at lunch time (or with peanut butter...a personal favorite when I was pregnant!) so I was a little skeptical when they mentioned that it was a banana dessert. So with that said, I'll proudly proclaim to you all that even if you don't like bananas in your dessert, just try this recipe, you'll be glad you did! As a special treat, and to prove to you how yummy this dessert is, I'll post some pictures of my son who seems to REALLY be enjoying it! (I can NOT get enough of those little chubby fingers!)

Not Your Mama's Banana Pudding

Recipe by Paula Deene

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen Cookies (any butter cookie will work, but seriously look how cute the dessert looks with the fancy little chess cookies!)

6 Bananas, sliced

2 cups Milk

1 box instant French Vanilla Pudding (5 oz)

1 package Cream Cheese, softened (8 oz)

1 can Sweetened Condensed Milk (14 oz)

1 container Cool Whip, thawed

1. In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well. In a separate bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk until smooth. Fold the Cool Whip into the cream cheese mixture. Combine the pudding and cream cheese mixture and stir until well blended.

2. Line the bottome of a 9X13" dish with 1 bag of the cookies.

3. Layer bananas on top of the cookies.

4. Pour the pudding mixture on top of the bananas.

5. Layer the remaining bag of cookies on top of the pudding.

6. Refrigerate over night for best result because the cookies get soft...MMMMM!

*A little note to the chef interested in making this dessert. You can totally throw in an additional layer of cookies, just buy an extra bag of cookies and only put half the pudding mixture down over the first layer of bananas then a layer of cookies, then the other half of the pudding, then layer the last bag of cookies. I did this the for these pictures, and my husband thought it was EVEN better!!

Posted in: Dessert