Not Yo' Mama's Banana Pudding

We've been making this for so long. It's the best! It's from Paula Deen. This dessert is a go-to for family parties and church potlucks!

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessman Cookies

6 (or as many as you like - I've done it with as little as 2 but more is better) ripe bananas, sliced
2 cups milk

1 5-oz. package French vanilla pudding

1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened

1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk

1 1/2 - 2 cups heavy cream, whipped (A 12-oz. container of Cool Whip can be used if desired)

Line a 9x13x2 glass baking dish with cookies. Cut to fit if needed. Evenly top cookies with slices of banana. With a mixer, beat pudding and milk. In a large bowl mix by hand the cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk; add whipped cream and mix. Then stir in pudding mixture. Pour over bananas. Top with a layer of cookies. Refrigerate until serving.

I made this last night because we were all hungry for it but didn't have exactly all the ingredients. We used vanilla snaps, which were good but not nearly as good as the Chessman. I also only had 2 bananas to slice up. Because I was running short on the cookies after I lined the bottom on the pan, I put the remainder of them in a food processor and sprinkled the crumbs on the top.

Again, ideally there should be more banana slices and the cookies should be the Chessman.

The cream cheese/whipped cream mixture and the pudding mixture before combined.

The cookie crumbs I used for the top. Ideally, it's covered with Chessman cookies, which looks really neat!

However, even with the alterations to the recipe, it was still very delicious to the point where I had to make myself stop eating it!