Black And White Trifles - by Lisa

Oh hello, end of April. What's that? I have 3 more recipes to complete this week? Whoops... I think all the heavy duty baking I did for my 4 year old's birthday and the contribution to his classroom's Easter party about done burned me out. After two batches of decorated sugar cookies plus a homemade Buzz Lightyear cake all in one week, I was ready for a major break. Oh, and we are also in the midst of buying a house. :P

So I decided to start back with these little beauties. I split it up over two days since it required some time in the fridge. Let me tell you, after the first night, I was cursing this recipe up a blue streak. The first step was making the puddings. I figured that would be pretty straight forward and not a big deal since I've made plenty of puddings for recipes in this book. Sadly, my regular go to pan was not big enough, but I didn't realize this until it was too late and I had not yet thickened pudding literally spilling over the sides of the pot. I dumped it into a bigger pot and kept it boiling away, but it would. not. thicken. I don't know what the problem was. I finally (unwisely) decided to dump in another couple teaspoons of corn starch and promptly learned why nearly every recipe calls for cornstarch to first be dissolved in a liquid. {sigh}

I was so frustrated with it that I decided it didn't deserve any pictures except of this cute one of my kiddo helping out.

Caiden whisking away

I no longer complain about chopping chocolate

Fortunately, I was in much better spirits about the whole project by the next day. Plus, the pudding finally thickened up in the fridge. I set to work cubing the (store bought Sara Lee) pound cake and slicing the strawberries. Incidentally, I'm glad I took the time to measure what half an inch really looks like, otherwise my cubes would have been a bit on the large side. :P

Cake cubes...looks a little like cheese cubes

Hulling berries (this shot took forever to set up!)

I also decided to go with fresh squeezed OJ in place of the liquor since I knew the kids would want to enjoy this treat as well.

This was really easy to assemble and fun to see how the layers came together. Sadly, I don't have any photos of them with the whipped cream. I planned to take photos later with the remaining cups, but my "darling" 4 year old absconded with the bowl of whipped cream I had foolishly left on the counter. I didn't discover his thievery until I raided his bed looking for the missing (and licked clean) bowl and whisk.

Despite the rough start, this was an incredibly yummy dessert. It had many of my favorite things, and combining those all together into one dessert was pretty awesome. A spoonful of it also makes a great mute button for my 1 1/2 year old. ;)