When I started this project, I knew that there would be some (likely many) fails. Never in a million years, however, did I think that this would be one of them.
A little backstory about this recipe. As I moved into adulthood, my mom still made a big deal about birthdays. Specifically my birthday (and later once we got married Danny’s birthday ).
“What do you want for your birthday,” she would ask me. I would always reply that I didn’t need anything but if she insisted on doing something (she always did) that I would like for her to make this dessert.
A lot of her recipes are intimidating. This is not one of them. So, when we got invited to a Super Bowl party, I enthusiastically said, “I will bring a dessert from my mom’s files so that I can blog about it!”
And that, is how I found myself in the kitchen on the morning of Super Bowl Sunday. The trickiest part of this recipe *should* be the 1st layer which is the base that requires mixing flour/chopped pecans/margarine together and baking it to form the crust.
That part went fine. Well, except for the fact that I used a food processor that was too small and it turned into more of a paste than a crust. Nevertheless, Layer #1 tasted fine (and was to be covered in three other layers so it didn’t really matter what it looked like).
Layer #2 involved mixing cream cheese/powdered sugar and cool whip. No problems here either. All was still well in the kitchen.
(Layers 1 and 2 all ready to go).
It all went wrong on Layer #3, which is literally just mixing instant pudding with milk and whipping it together. I am still not entirely sure where it went sideways. The recipe I was working from said:
- 1 small pkg. instant vanilla pudding
- 1 small pkg. instant chocolate pudding
- 3 cups cold milk
- Whip pudding mixes and milk together and spread over second layer.
The recipe doesn’t specifically state how small of a pkg, so, my assumption is that I got the wrong size puddings and when mixed with the 3 cups of cold milk the ratio got thrown off. Basically, I just made a huge mess.
It was when I noticed the pudding mix dripping down my dishwasher that I declared defeat. I texted my friends hosting the Super Bowl party with the below photo and a note that said, “time of death 1pm.” Thankfully, I thought to buy pretzel bites/pimento cheese dip/chips and salsa from a local proprietor on Saturday afternoon (in case the dessert went awry) so I didn’t show up to the party empty handed.
(Official time of death 1:00pm on February 9, 2025.)
I will likely try this one again (perhaps my birthday would be a good time for a do-over) and am going to hold off on posting the full recipe until I get it right. I imagine that somewhere in the after life my mom had a nice chuckle about this one.
I’m my head I hear Sue telling me, “well she tried.” Saying this while chuckling about it.
I can’t wait for the full recipe because this sounds delish! I have a similar very favorite dessert my mom makes for my birthday. Notes from that recipe – the 3 cups of milk IS added to 2 small boxes of pudding. BUT it takes overnight to set the pudding layer