I am going to let you in on a little secret. This Chocolate Cream Cheese Pudding Dessert is MyHandsomeHusbands favorite dessert of all time. It has a fabulous brown sugar short bread crust and layers of cream cheese filling, chocolate pudding and cool whip. Yum. No wonder he loves it so! Both my Mom, and his Mom made it for our respective families when we were kids. (I bet you have had it before as well…it was a dessert staple in the 80’s, am I right?)
Anyhow, my man often asks for it for his birthday or Father’s Day. To my great frustration, I have ruined it MANY times. Truly. For some reason I get the crust too thick, or dark, or crispy and we have to take a hammer to the blessed concoction just to break it up and eat it. Chizzle, chizzle, chip, chip.
I am Jamie Cooks It Up! Hear me roar.
This year when MyHandsomeHusband asked for it again for Father’s Day (he’s a patient man, right!) I put myself to work questioning my Mom with the ins and outs of how to make it happen. She gave me some tips on the crust (as I will show you in great detail below) and I am more than happy to report my family gobbled it up with happy faces and comments like…
“Oh yeah, this is it…this is like Grandmas.”
“Really good, Mom…I guess you can keep blogging about food since you didn’t ruin Dad’s favorite dessert again.”
“Sweet home Alabama, this is a dessert of heavenly wonder and bliss.”
And it was really good. So good that I made it again yesterday, just because I knew I could.
Hold the chizzle, chizzle, chip, chip. 🙂
Chocolate Cream Cheese Pudding Dessert
PRINT RECIPE
Time: 45 minutes + 1 hour refrigeration
Yield: 15 servings
Recipe adapted from MyDearMom
CRUST:
1/2 C pecans, finely chopped
1 C flour
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C butter, softened
dash salt
CREAM CHEESE LAYER:
12 ounces cream cheese (1 1/2 packages) softened
1 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
dash salt
1 1/2 C cool whip
PUDDING LAYER:
1 (6 ounce) box chocolate pudding mix
3 C milk
CREAM LAYER:
3-4 C cool whip
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
2. Chop up 1/2 cup of pecans.
3. Into a medium-sized mixing bowl place 1 cup flour, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup softened butter and the chopped pecans.
4. Using a pastry blender (or fork, which is all I happened to have), mix the ingredients together. You don’t want to over mix them, there should still be many clumps of butter throughout the mix. It should look like coarse crumbs.
5. Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray and then sprinkle the mixture into it. Press it gently down with your fingers. Pop it in the oven and let it bake for 10 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
6. Take it out of the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes. Then, when it is still warm take a handy spatula…
and break the crust up into pieces.
Then press it back down with the spatula and let it cool completely.
7. Into a medium-sized mixing bowl (or your stand mixer) place one large box instant chocolate pudding mix and 3 cups cold milk.
Beat it until it’s nice and thick.
8. Into another medium-sized mixing bowl place 12 ounces softened cream cheese. Add 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla and a dash of salt. Beat them until well combined and smooth.
9. Find yourself some thawed cool whip and add 1 1/2 cups to the bowl. Beat it until well combined.
10. Carefully spoon the cream cheese layer on the cooled crust. Take a knife and gently spread it over the crust. Now, please don’t panic if some of the crust starts to loosen up and stick to the filling. Just be gentle with it and spread it carefully. If a little bit of the crust comes up, the world will not come to and end. I promise.
Just spread it out the best you can. 🙂
11. Cover the cream cheese layer with the pudding.
12. Place about 4 cups of cool whip on top of the pudding layer (between the cream cheese layer and the cream topping I used just shy of a 16 ounce container of cool whip).
Spread it all about.
13. Cover with plastic wrap and let it chill out in the fridge for at least 1 hour.
24 comments
I loved this dessert growing up – we called it “Chocolate Lush” at our house and my mom also made a lemon version (just swapped out the chocolate pudding for lemon) that of course was “Lemon Lush” :o) Love your blog – especially your sense of humor (chisel, chisel, chip, chip) and your comfortable, homey recipes. Thanks!
I love your site’s new look! Thanks for the great recipe’s and chuckle every time I’m here! ~Kendi
Wow, does this bring back memories! Where I’m from they are known as “Better Than Robert Redford bars” and they were a staple at every family get together (very large extended family, my mom was the youngest of 15). Sadly I can’t make them as I live in the land where they don’t sell cool whip 🙁
Can you get the powdered Dream Whip? Or just go with good old whipped cream?
Mary,
Dream Whip would work out fine, whipping cream would be even better. 🙂
Best of luck!
~Jamie
These are good with an oreo crust or a short bread crust too. Then you can leave out the step of breaking up the crust.I have been making these for years
We love this dessert. My family has always called it. “Mountain Mama”. They ask for it often and I think I will make it tonight. Thanks so much. Love your site!!!!!!
I think all men must love this! My mom makes this for my husband. We call it “Fluff”.
This recipe is very much like one my friend makes. Her recipe is made with pistachio pudding and the crust is made with powdered sugar instead of brown sugar. I will be making the chocolate one for my family very soon – yum! 🙂
This recipe is my family’s favorite except that I’m only “allowed” to make it with pistachio pudding. I’ve used other flavors (including chocolate, which is my fave), but pistachio seems to be the winner in our house. This is my first time visiting your blog. I’ll be back! 🙂
I also had this growing up. It was always made for Christmas dessert and always in duplicate, chocolate AND lemon.(I have a sister who hates chocolate–so wrong, right? and my dad can’t have it–poor thing.) We have a different crust though since no one likes nuts…
1.5 c flour
3/4c butter
1 tsp. sugar
Combine till looks like coarse meal (cut in butter like you would a pie crust). Press in bottom of 9×13 and @325 for 25-30 minutes. Cool before adding other layers.
Thanks for the reminder of this great classic, I just might make it tonight!
Writing too fast…
Press in the bottom of a 9×13 pan and Bake @325 for 25-30 minutes.
My grandma (Dad’s mom) made something similar when I was a kid. We just called it “4 Layered Dessert.” I’ll have to show Dad the recipe and ask if it looks like the same one!
Thanks Wendy for a crust alternative. I was wondering if anyone substituted pretzels for the nuts? I have a child who has a nut allergy. I’ve heard of subbing pretzels but haven’t actually tried yet. Thanks!
I dont do it your way… you should look up 4 layer chocolate dessert.. we dont break up the crust after it’s done and it really good that way… i’m not a cream cheese person so i’m looking for an alternative to that.
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I make this with butterscotch pudding with sprinkled pecans on top. It’s a great dessert.
I have a recipe very similar to this one without the brown sugar in the crust. It is very good also.
We always called this Chocolate Delight. Yum by any name.
Very much like Sex In A Pan! Just as good & Yummy!
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