Trifles

These are actually trifles! What I mean by that is that they are trifles, as in the dessert, but they are also trifles, as in a small quantity of something. I kind of deconstructed my daring bakers challenge when the spongecake didn't work out to my satisfaction and decided instead to bring all the components to our dinner at our friends' house. I whipped up a quick batch of yellow cake as well as some made-from-scratch chocolate pudding. You can see I got my chocolate fix! Woohoo!

I used our friends' stemless wine glasses (which I then came home and promptly bought a set of) to create a layering of yellow cake, raspberry mousse, crushed almond cookies, more yellow cake, lemon mousse, more crushed almond cookies, and topped it off with a few slivered almonds. (My picture doesn't show the double layer of cake because my husband scarfed down the remaining cake before I could tell him I was trying to get a picture of the trifle. Oh well, that's technically what it's there for, right?)

For the chocolate version, I still used the yellow cake, then topped it with chocolate pudding, crushed chocolate cookies, more yellow cake, more chocolate pudding, and more crushed chocolate cookies. Magnificent! It was the chocolate fix I was looking for the other day. I found finally found it!

The yellow cake was just out of a box. I thought after spending so much time on the spongecake the day before and not having it be to my liking I would just go with something I was confident would give the taste and texture I was looking for. The raspberry and lemon mousse recipes can be found on my last post, click here. The almond cookie recipe is still coming so hold on just a little bit longer. That leaves the best for last, chocolate pudding! Enjoy!


Chocolate Cream Pudding
Makes 6 to 8 servings

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk
3 egg yolks, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Combine sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt in a heavy saucepan; add milk and egg yolks. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils; boil and stir 1 minute. Remove from heat; blend in butter and vanilla. Pour into bowl or individual dessert dishes; press plastic wrap directly onto surface. Cool; chill until set.