Southern Trifle

In developing this recipe, I took elements from different beloved family desserts and created this trifle: I call it "Southern" because to me the flavors speak South, not to mention the "go big or go home" attitude of this dish - if constructed in a clear vessel this trifle has a definite wow factor, so it's great for entertaining:

For my latest dinner party, I wanted to combine both my cousin's love for banana cream pie and my sister's famed Punchbowl Cake recipe, a chocolate-y version using chocolate cake for banana, kahlua for rum, and chocolate pudding for butterscotch (essentially I made the Blondie version of her trifle) - this was a different take, but ultimately tasty creation!

Here's how it's done:

Ingredients

1 package butterscotch instant pudding mix

2 cups cold milk (2 Percent or Skim will do)

1 container Cool Whip, defrosted

2 slices banana pound cake

Rum - about 1/4 cup

Snickers 8-pack fun-sized treats 2 ripe bananas, sliced

1) Prepare pudding mix according to package directions and chill in refrigerator.

2) While the pudding sets, dice the pound cake into 1-cm chunks and fill shallow dish with rum. Dip pound cake chunks into rum to soak up the flavor and remove after a few seconds - any longer and the cake will become over-saturated.

3) Cut Snickers into small pieces and crumbles and slice the bananas. Retrieve the set pudding. 4) Assemble the trifle: using a tall glass dish (see photo for example), cover the bottom with a layer of rum-soaked banana pound cake. Cover with layer of butterscotch pudding, topped with banana slices. Next spread a layer of Cool Whip, sprinkled with Snickers crumbles.

5) Then reverse trifle order (or layer as you please - the beauty of a trifle is that you can be creative and do as you like!) with more bananas, pudding, pound cake, etc. - finish with a layer of Cool Whip and top with remaining banana slices and tiniest chocolate crumbles from the Snickers. Chill in refrigerator until serving - this dish tastes even better the next day!