Banana Pudding

******NOT****** PAULA DEENS BANANA PUDDING*****************

Okay, so I had been ogling this recipe in hopes that it would expand my dessert palate and repitoire. I have never made a banana~y dessert. I am more of a berry kind of girl. Strawberries? Yes PLEASE! Blueberries, yes, raspberries, blackberries, yes and yes! :) Also, I am not into pudding. I don't like the loose texture. I was however able to cultivate an irresistible affinity for Crème Brulee. Go figure! I didn't always like it, but it finally hooked me when my hubby ordered it at a restaurant where the dish was more shallow than average. It was just the right ratio of custard to the bruleed sugar coating....OMG! So, I don't make puddings, custards or anything like that. I do like bananas, just not banana flavored stuff. My hubby likes banana flavored things, custards and puddings.....so this one was for him. Love you Babe! ;) HEEE LOVED it! The banana flavor was too strong for me. So if you are a banana fan....maybe you will love it too! That would make me happy because then it wouldn't be a complete failure. I say it was a fail because in my eagerness to make this I bought banana cream pudding and it should have been vanilla pudding. Also, I got this recipe from a blogger and she had it listed as Paula Deen's recipe. I guess this is where reading skills come into play. I skimmed the recipe and missed the part where she says that she tweaked hers a little bit. I thought the ONLY tweak she had made was the cookies. I should have just gone to Paula Deen's website, but I liked that she used Nilla Wafers instead of those expensive chessman cookies. In Paula's recipe, she calls for one less cup of milk and I think that is why I wasn't as happy with the texture as I could have been. There is always next time! I am gonna recommend that if you make this, you use the vanilla flavored pudding and use one less cup of milk and lastly refrigerate until ready to serve. The cookies do soften when refrigerated for a long time, so try to eat it soon if you like crunchy cookies.

                                                     Here are the ingredients above; ~1 box Nilla Wafers, ~4-6 bananas,  ~2 cups of milk, ~1 block cream cheese, ~ 12 oz tub of whipped topping, ~14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk, ~5oz box of French vanilla pudding..

Line a 9x13 pan with Nilla Wafers.

Chop your bananas and place them over the Nilla Wafers.

Use an electric hand mixer to combine block of cream cheese and can of sweetened condensed milk until smooth texture is achieved.

Mix Vanilla pudding and 2 cups of milk.

Slowly mix in tub of whipped topping into the sweetened condensed milk and cream cheese mixture.

Now add the whipped topping, sweetened condensed milk and cream cheese mixture to the pudding and mix.........

and mix, until well incorporated.

Now pour the entire mixture over the bananas.

Place more cookies over the pudding. Refrigerate until ready to serve!

Here is what it looked like served.

What the rest looked like after a serving was taken.

And this is what it looked like just minutes after I served it. This is why I think using less milk would make it set up way better and not be as likely to kinda get all melty.....which is NOT pretty. Oh and if you have really read this far....here is a link to Paula's recipe so you can check hers out if you like!