THE CREDIT
THE SELECTION
One of my coworkers had a birthday last week. I took to my trusty Pinterest board to find something delicious to bring into the office, and I settled on a glorious no-bake Oreo dessert. It was lovely and wonderful and it looked like this:
But it wasn’t lemon, and it’s LEMON MONTH, and I was terribly conflicted about breaking my theme… I even had my post all written. But then I had a brilliant idea.
Sub the regular Oreos for the Golden Oreos, and switch the pudding to lemon.
Voila! THEME STAYS IN TACT.
THE RECIPE – NO-BAKE LEMON LAYER DESSERT
INGREDIENTS
- 1 package Golden Oreos
- 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
- 1 large box instant pudding, lemon flavor (plus the milk for making the pudding)
- 2 tubs (8 oz each) Cool Whip
- 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese
- 1 cup powdered sugar
NOTE: If you’re interested in lightening this recipe up, you can use reduced-fat Oreos, skim milk for the pudding, fat free Cool Whip, Neufchatel cheese in place of the cream cheese, and probably a light butter and a sugar-free pudding. Or mix and match any of those variables. Any bit helps!
INSTRUCTIONS
Don’t preheat your oven. You won’t need it for this recipe! But you should probably take your tubs of Cool Whip out of the freezer and let them start thawing. Even better if you can give them as much time as possible. Soft Cool Whip = easier to work with.
The first step is to crush the package of Oreos. You can use a food processor, or a food chopper, or you can put them in a large Ziploc bag and crush them to bits with a rolling pin. Or hire your own personal Hulk to smash them all. Whatever means you choose is up to you. I used a food processor because it seemed easiest.
Set aside 1/2 cup – you’ll need these to sprinkle on the top later.
This next part seems a bit weird to me, but I followed what the recipe said and it seemed to work. Pour all the crumbs (minus your half cup, obviously) into a 9 x 13 pan. Melt your butter and pour it over the crumb mix. Stir it up (still in the pan) and then press the buttered crumbs into the bottom of the pan to form the crust.
It seemed odd to me to do this entire step IN the final pan, but I poured the butter as evenly as I could over the pan and made sure all the pieces got stirred up and coated as well as I could, then smoothed them back out into crust formation, and, well. It worked.
Now, find a medium-sized bowl and make your pudding according to the directions on the box. Let it set up in the fridge for about ten minutes or so, or however long it takes you to complete the next step.
While the pudding is setting, we’re going to make our cream cheese layer. Soften the cream cheese in the microwave, then add a cup of powdered sugar, and mix them together. (Try not to get the powdered sugar everywhere, like I did.)
Now, take one of your tubs of Cool Whip (hopefully you listened to me earlier and gave it proper time to thaw) and mix it in with the cream cheese/powdered sugar combination. Stir it until it’s completely integrated.
Take the cream cheese/powdered sugar/Cool Whip mixture and spread it out over the Oreo crust.
Hopefully your pudding has set sufficiently by now, because you’re going to take that out of the fridge and spread it out over the cream cheese layer.
Here’s where I learned from both my Pumpkin Lust Cake and the actual chocolate-Oreo version attempt just a few days prior: at this point, put your pan back in the fridge for a little bit and let the pudding set back up again. You’ll have a much easier time spreading the Cool Whip over the top without getting it all tangled with the pudding.
That’s the next step, by the way. Take your other tub of Cool Whip and spread it over the pudding layer.
And now, for the final touch: sprinkle the remaining Oreo bits over the top.
Refrigerate your masterpiece until you are ready to serve it.
THE VERDICT
Theirs/The Original:
[via]
Mine/Modified:
It was an interesting experience, making (and subsequently eating) the lemon version so soon after the chocolate version. The chocolate version was everything you’d expect from an Oreo dessert. The lemon version was its own beast. It was much more summery, and it was very reminiscent of the aforementioned Pumpkin Lust Cake. Despite being an identical recipe, the two versions turned out very differently. Both were delicious, but you probably wouldn’t suspect that they were the same thing.
[Can regular people actually make this? Is it easy?] We’ll put it this way: it was so easy I made it twice in one week.
[Did it require any weird gadgetry or cookware?] You’ll need some means of crushing up your cookies, but otherwise: you need a pan, some bowls, a whisk, and a spatula. The usual bits.
[How much did the ingredients cost?] Let’s see… the package of Oreos set me back $2.99, each tub of Cool Whip was $1.40, the cream cheese/Neufchatel was about a dollar, a bag of powdered sugar was about $2, and the box of pudding was probably somewhere around a dollar too. The butter I already had because, well, I bake a lot.
[Does it taste as good as it looks? Does it only look good because it was so well photographed?] This question is perhaps not valid because I do not have a source image for the lemon version, because I made up the modification for it, but in the event you are drooling over MY images, then, yes: it’s totally justified, and totally delicious.
[Weight Watchers Points+] Turns out, it’s possible to actually cut this into pieces. I got 16 pieces from it, because it was a shame to cut them any smaller – this would put them around 8 points each. Definitely a special occasion treat. (Note: these point values are if you use skim milk for the pudding, Neufchatel instead of cream cheese, and fat free Cool Whip.)
[Final recommendation] I’m reasonably certain that there’s no way you can mess this up, and everyone seems to LOVE it. Emphatic two thumbs up.
Love the mod!