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My freshman year of college found Tiffani and I rooming together in a dorm that had no kitchen. All of the other dorms had kitchens but turns out, we were placed into the oldest dormitory on campus and the only without a place to cook food. Also, apparently our dorm was haunted. It was really a great way to start your college experience.
So our RA, in an attempt to distract us from the fact that the communal bathrooms had no shower curtains, decided to have a little party to teach us all how to cook without a stove. Which basically was “Run this Cup O’ Ramen Noodle Soup under the hot water.” And also this recipe for No Bake Cookies And Cream Surprise” which is pretty much what we ate all of freshman year. I like to call that “comfort food”
Whenever we have an event one of us usually shows up with Cookies & Cream Surprise, not just because it’s delicious but because it’s inexpensive and takes about five minutes to whip together.
So today I’m going to share the recipe with you. Please disregard my terrible attempt at food photography as the Pioneer Woman I am not. Which is too bad, really, because it’d be way more fun if I was all “and then add a cup of milk WAIT! A WILD HORSE IS GALLOPING STRAIGHT TOWARDS MY KITCHEN! I MUST GO LASSO IT AND RETURN IT SAFELY TO IT’S HERD! and then two tablespoons of butter…”
But alas, my life is not nearly as exciting and my kitchen sorely lacking in windows to provide good light.
Anyhow, first gather up your ingredients. You’ll need a dish (I use a 9×9 pan) some milk, a package of chocolate cookies with cream filling, two boxes of vanilla pudding and a carton of COOL WHIP Whipped Topping. I use the extra creamy but any COOL WHIP will do.
Mix the vanilla pudding according to the instructions on the package. Then add the entire container of COOL WHIP. I mean, unless you want to save a dollop or two or four for your morning coffee. I totally won’t judge you for that. Mix until smooth. You can just mix this altogether by hand with a fork like I did in my pre-mixer college days if you like.
Then put a scoop of the pudding/COOL WHIP mix on the high chair tray for your baby to smear everywhere like a little Picasso while you try to photograph this tutorial. Oh wait no, that’s just what’s happening in MY kitchen.
In your kitchen, you should take a cookie and dunk it in milk. Like, fully submerge it. Don’t even skimp here. Reserve a few cookies to crumble on top later. Also, some versions of this recipe tell you to just crumble up all of the cookies and throw them in the pan. But those versions are wrong. The milk dunked cookie is what makes this extra delicious. And that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I crack myself up.
Line the bottom of the dish with the milk-dunked cookies. Then add a layer of the pudding/COOL WHIP mixture. And then another layer of cookies. Then another layer of pudding/COOL WHIP mixture.
Top the whole thing off with some of the crumbled up cookies and stick it in the refrigerator for about an hour.
There’s not really any sort of surprise here. It’s a bit of a misnomer. Although it IS surprising to my husband that I announced I had dessert ready and nothing was on fire. And I suppose you could switch up your pudding flavors if you wanted. Like “SURPRISE! IT’S CHOCOLATE PUDDING!” but I wouldn’t get all crazy with that if I were you. No one wants to eat Lemon Cookies & Cream Surprise, that’s what I’m saying.
The great thing about this dessert is that you can keep all of the ingredients on hand and then always have something quick and easy to take along to your church picnic or dinner party or book club or whatever. This dish seems to be a fan favorite, there’s never any left at the end of a party.
Do you have a special dessert you’d like to share? Enter COOL WHIP’s Fan Dessert of the Month Contest for a chance to win $500! Simply make a COOL WHIP dessert, take a photo, and upload it here. Enter now!
*Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor. Advertisers do not produce the content. I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective, but the content is all my own.
**That basically means that I wrote this whole thing all by myself 😉
