Trifle

The last dessert that I made for our party last fall was a trifle.  A trifle is a wonderful, delicious thing.  Though they always remind me of the episode of Friends where Rachel makes one with meat and peas because pages of the cookbook stuck together (though, of course, Joey likes it "what's not to like?  Custard, good.  Jam, good.  Meat, goooood").

The problem with a trifle is that they're usually huuuuge and you end up with a ton left over.  I personally think you should only serve it if you have at least 6 people there.  Otherwise it sits in your fridge covered in the trifle dish, or you end up putting it in tupperware and then it never looks as appetizing as leftovers (if anyone has ideas on how to store leftover trifle, let me know!)

I based this recipe off one I got from my bridal shower gift cookbook.  I honestly have no idea who gave it to me, as not all recipes are signed.  I thought it was from one friend who had brought a trifle once to a dinner party I threw and she and this recipe-giver both jokingly referred to the trifle as "The Bomb".  So if any ladies who were at my shower happen to be reading this and know who submitted this recipe, let me know so I can give proper credit!!

The only snafu I ran into while making this is that the round  cake pan that I had (a spring-form pan) wasn't an exact match for the size of my trifle dish, so to make it fit, I cut a strip down the middle of the cake and removed it.  That way, when I made the cake smaller, it was able to squish together just enough to fit perfectly in the dish.  Also, I made a full round cake then cut it in half length-wise so I had two smaller cakes to layer into the trifle.

I do have a confession to make - I used some mixes to make this.  I used a cake mix and pudding mixes.  It can be considered cheating, but when I was making so much from scratch, this was the simplest way to do this.  Next time I will make the cakes and puddings from scratch as well!  I did make the whipped cream myself, though.  I used very little sugar with my heavy cream, since the rest of it was so sweet I thought putting too much in would be a little too sweet.

Trifle (adapted from a recipe given to me, original source unknown)

Ingredients
1 box chocolate cake mix (or make your own!)
chocolate pudding mix
1 box Heath Bar bits
whipped cream

Directions
- Bake the cake either in two shallow cake pans or one higher one.  Let cool completely.
-  Make the pudding.  Let cool completely.
- If you have one large cake, cut in half lengthwise so you have 2 equal sized round cakes.
- Put one cake on the bottom of the trifle dish.
- cover with 1/2 of the pudding.
- cover with 1/2 of the whipped cream.
- sprinkle with Heath bar bits.
- Repeated again - cake, pudding, whipped cream, Heath bar bits