Impromptu Trifle ~ A Tragedy

My story starts with some lovely strawberries.

They were about to go bad so I needed to do something with them ASAP. I really wanted to make a dessert that incorporated sliced & sugared strawberries. Market Basket had a sale this weekend on Jello Pudding mix and Betty Crocker Cake Mix ($1!!!) so I had these on hand.

So what do I do with some strawberries, a package of Jello Vanilla Pudding and some Cake Mix? Make some Impromptu Trifle!

So I sliced those lovely strawberries...

And smothered them in sugar.

My beau Carlos goes through my eggs like something fierce, so I didn't have the 3 eggs needed for the cake mix. So I made do with my vegan egg replacement (post on that to come) which was 3/4 cup of soymilk plus 1-1/2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar.

I baked most of the mix in a greased loaf pan at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. It looked fine when it came out.

But then I took it out of the loaf pan and it broke.

Another disaster: I made the grave mistake of using soymilk instead of real milk with the Jello pudding mix. It didn't set. So I had pudding gloop instead.

I was determined to make this dessert no matter how catastrophic it came out. So I took some broken cake and sprinkled some rum on it.

Then I smothered the broken cake with the pudding gloop and topped it off with strawberries. It was edible. My resident guinea pig Carlos liked it, especially how mushy the cake was. That was the part I hated the most! In the end, we had our dessert to cap off our meal so all's well that ends well.

Lessons Learned:

#1 Make a pound cake or buy lady fingers for a trifle. Don't use cake mix.

#2 Never, I repeat NEVER use Soymilk instead of milk with Jello Pudding mix.

#3 Sheer determination in making a dessert, even against all odds, can have mixed results. But it's worth it.

So be brave. Forge ahead. Bake like you've never baked before! And never be afraid to experiment.