Paula's Banana Pudding

“Do you come to this park often?”  This could be misconstrued as a bad pick up line if it had not come from a cute little girl who only wanted to play with the “big girls”, Elizabeth and Sophie, at the park. 

This Paula Deen recipe has received almost 2,000 reviews on Food Network.  It does not look like your typical banana pudding but it is pure Paula, no skimping on the content or the calories.

Paula's Banana Pudding

Ingredients:

1.      2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies

2.      6 to 8 bananas, sliced

3.      2 cups milk

4.      1 (5-ounce) box instant French vanilla pudding (I couldn’t find French vanilla so used vanilla)

5.      1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

6.      1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

7.      1 (12-ounce) container frozen whipped topping thawed, or equal amount sweetened whipped cream (1 cup heavy whipping cream plus 2 T sugar)

Line the bottom of a 13 by 9 by 2-inch dish with 1 bag of cookies and layer bananas on top.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using a handheld electric mixer or whisk. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and mix until smooth. Fold the whipped topping into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

UPDATE 2/26/13
For more recipes, check out Southern Living's post for Banana Pudding 10 Ways - kind of ironic to have banana pudding on the brain these days.