Copy Kat's "Olive Garden" Alfredo Sauce

This is probably one of my top ten recipes that I get asked for all the time.  If you like Alfredo sauce, I think you will LOVE this.  The list of ingredients (and fat content) should be enough to tell you how great it is!  I got this recipe YEARS ago off the Internet, and I am not totally sure where I got it from, but I suspect it came from the Copy Kat website, with my own changes added in.  The picture came from, where else but, The Olive Garden website.

“Olive Garden” Alfredo Sauce

Ingredients:

• ½ cup butter
• 2 Tbl. cream cheese
• 1 pint heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste
• ¼ tsp. garlic powder
• 2/3 cup grated parmesan cheese*

Directions:

1. Melt butter in saucepan, add cream cheese, and when cream cheese is soft add heavy cream and seasonings to taste. 
2. Simmer, over low heat, stirring constantly, until sauce reaches desired thickness (coats the back of a wooden spoon pretty well). Can take as long as 10-20 minutes. 
3. Remove from heat and stir in parmesan cheese. Serve. (Keep in mind when cooking sauce that it will thicken more when cheese is added and melted.)

Marsha's Notes:

I like to use a higher quality parmesan for this, because it makes a difference in the flavor.