A New Idea for Holiday Dessert: Chocolate Cherry Trifle

Holiday greetings from Holly! This is a busy time of year for just about everyone. Christmas just ended, the new year is upon us, and people are scrambling to make this time special for their families. Well, I think presenting your guests with an impressive meal is how you can be "winning" like Charlie Sheen this season. I'm going to start from the end, though, and share my Christmas dessert with you. This dessert was inspired by my favorite pastime lately, Bakery Story (click here to download Bakery Story for Android and Bakery Story for Apple). It's a delightful game in which you create and run your own little bakery. One of my favorite recipes is the chocolate cherry trifle. I also made a "celebration trifle" inspired by this same game, but I will share that recipe with you later.

This recipe will leave you with a decadent, crowd-pleasing dessert with very little work or cooking skill required. If you want to break away from the traditional fruit cake and ginger bread house territory that goes hand-in-hand with this season, then follow me to trifle land, friends.

Chocolate Cherry Trifle

You'll need:

1 Box chocolate cake mix (prepare according to package)

5.9 oz box of chocolate pudding (prepare according to package)

21 oz can of cherry pie filling

8 oz container of Cool Whip whipped topping (original or chocolate)

Make it:

1. Prepare the cake according to the package, but make sure that you cook it in a 13x9 in pan so that you can cut it into smaller pieces easily.

2. After the cake has cooled completely (about 2-4 hours), cut it into 1 to 2 in cubes. It is OK if the cube sizes vary slightly.

3. Prepare the pudding according to the package.

4. In a tall, glass dish (glass is best so that you can gawk at the beauty of your trifle from the side) arrange a layer of cake cubes and then top the cake with 4 or 5 spoonfuls of pudding.

5. Now cover the pudding with about 3 spoonfuls of cherry pie filling and then cover with 4 to 5 spoonfuls of Cool Whip.

6. Repeat this layering until you've filled your dish or until you've run out of ingredients. I had to make two small trifles because I don't have a proper trifle dish, but that actually works great if you plan to make the dessert last for 2 nights.

7. Place the trifle in the refrigerator with plastic wrap covering it until you are ready to revel in the indulgence.

I will see you all in 2014! Thank you for supporting our new blog.