Deep-Dish Layered Southern Banana Pudding

Oh my!  This is NOT your Grandma's banana pudding!  And, to be completely honest, I was never a huge fan of traditional banana pudding.  It lacked texture.  I know, that sounds crazy.  But I really like to chew my food and after it chilled for a few hours, then there really was no chewing required.  Well, after you taste this one, you may never make Grandma's banana pudding again.  I certainly won't!  This is phenomenal and is one that, after we all had our serving, I had to give the rest away just to get it out of the house.  If I hadn't, then we'd all be miserable AND fat!

30 vanilla wafers
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 pkg (3.4 oz each) Jello vanilla flavor instant pudding
2 cups cold milk
1 tub (8 oz) thawed Cool Whip
4 bananas, sliced
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Crush vanilla wafers; mix with next 4 ingredients.  Spread onto bottom of large rimmed cookie sheet or jelly roll pan sprayed with cooking spray.  Bake 5 min; stir.  Bake 3-5 min or until golden brown; cool completely.

2. Beat pudding mixes and milk with whisk 2 minutes.  Pudding will be thick.  Stir in 1 cup cool whip.  Layer 1/3 of the crumb mixture and half each of the bananas and pudding in serving bowl; repeat.

3. Beat cream cheese and granulated sugar in medium bowl with mixer until blended.  Gently stir in 1 cup of remaining cool whip; spread over top, sealing to edge of bowl.  Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture.  Refrigerate 3 hours.  Top each serving with remaining cool whip and whole wafers just before serving.

My notes:
I knew that one teaspoon of cinnamon in the crumb mixture would not be quite enough for my taste.  I used close to a tablespoon, but I can't tell you for sure because I didn't measure.

It took 12-15 minutes to get my crumb mixture as toasted as I wanted it.

I did not have 2 small boxes of vanilla pudding mix on hand.  I had one small box of cheesecake pudding mix and one large box of vanilla pudding mix.  So, I used the one small box of cheesecake pudding mix (which I measured it to be 1/2 cup) and 1/2 cup of the vanilla one.  That was equal to the 2 small boxes.  And I usually substitute cheesecake flavor for vanilla in recipes.  It just tastes less artificial to me.

Make it!  You'll move up in the ranks with a lotta folks!