I was getting a trim when the hair dresser asked me, “Are you making any thing special for the 4th?” I rattled off a few items from our standard Fourth of July fare and then muttered something about not being a “fancy cook”.  My sweet hairdresser then asked me a life changing question, “Have you ever made a trifle dish?”

Bam!

Can you say “new dish for the holiday meal”? I’ll wait and share our Patriotic Trifle Dish next July. But our tribe recently tried a chocolate version of a trifle dish and it is definitely worth sharing. This bad boy was on the Taste of Home website. You can click on the link for their version or you can check out the DoAhead variant below.

Chocolate Trifle

Ingredients:

1 Package Chocolate  Cake Mix

1 (six ounce) package instant chocolate pudding

1/2  cup strong coffee

12 ounces whipped topping, thawed

Dark chocolate shavings

Bake cake per instruction and allow to cool.  Prepare pudding and set aside.

Crumble the cake. Reserve 1/2 cup to sprinkle on top. Use 1/2 of the remaining cake and layer the bottom of the trifle dish. Cover with half of the pudding and then pour over with  a 1/4 cup of coffee. Layer with 1/2 the whip cream and the repeat. Mix dark chocolate shavings (we like 85% cocoa) with the 1/2 cup of cake crumbs and sprinkle on the top layer of whip cream.

Refrigerate for 4 to 5 hours before serving.

The original recipe calls for Heath toffee bits. We added them but honestly, the recipe seemed to lend itself more to an “unadulterated” chocolate experience!

{***This recipe is not well suited to preparing far in advance. The best DoAhead is to have your cake baked and your pudding prepared. Once those two things are done, assembling the dish takes a matter of minutes.}

If you too are new to the world of trifle dishes you can check out the link for an affordable dish from Amazon. It lacks a fancy pedestal but I liked the lid. If you want both a lid AND pedestal check out this link from Pampered Chef.

I’m certain you will enjoy this recipe and I promise…your guests won’t feel trifled with!

Your DoAhead Friend,