Paula Deen's "Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding"

I know Paula Deen has been a hot subject lately in the news media.  I haven't been following it that closely so I won't comment on her guilt or innocence.  All I know that her recipes are darn good.    I had never tried any of her recipes until this "media frenzy" started.  So out of curiosity, I bought her Southern Cooking Bible.

Leafing through the pages, I found this recipe.  I have never had Banana Pudding but my husband had.  So I thought I would surprise him with it yesterday.  This is so easy to make, you can literally whip this up in minutes.  The hardest part is cutting the bananas!

Paula Deen's Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding

Ingredients

1 box of Vanilla wafers
(she used Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies - too expensive for my budget - the vanilla wafers worked just fine)
6 to 8 bananas - cut into 1/4 inch slices
2 cups cold heavy whipping cream
2 cups milk
1 package (5 ounces) instant french vanilla pudding (I couldn't find french vanilla, so I used plain ole vanilla)
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
1 packaged (8 ounces) cream cheese - at room temperature

Put your mixing bowl in the refrigerator or a freezer - you need a "chilled" bowl to whip your cream.

Cover the bottom of an 13 x 9 inch baking dish or pan with the vanilla wafers and layer the sliced bananas on top.

In your chilled bowl, using either a handheld mixer or stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whip the cream with the sugar until stiff peaks appear.

In a separate bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix, blend well using a hand held mixer.

In another bowl, beat the condensed milk and cream cheese together until smooth.

Using a spatula, fold the whipped cream into the cheese mixture.  Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture , stir until completely mixed.

Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and top with the remaining cookies (I forgot to do that - oops!!).

Anyway - we all make mistakes!  Refrigerate this for 3 hours (if you can resist!!).

OH MY, is this ever good!!  My husband loved it!  Since I have never had banana pudding before, I had nothing to compare it to.  He said it was really good.  This is definitely a keeper recipe.