Autumn Trifle

I baked A LOT this weekend.  We were working a fall carnival at an elementary school and I needed some baked goods for that.  My pal Amy wanted to make a cake for her man Jay's birthday and I baked it ahead of time so we could decorate it Saturday afternoon.  I also needed something to take to a work Halloween party Saturday night.  On Friday I was sitting near a lady talking about her own school's carnival that is coming up and we swapped ideas.  She said that kids always choose the treat that has gummy worms on it.  I took her advice and made some worms in dirt cookies:

So appetizing!

As for Amy's cake...that's how I came up with the Autumn Trifle.  See, I tried to make the cake while cooking dinner on Friday night.  I may have misread the directions and I may have poured in a little too much water.  The cake may have fallen apart.  Nope, the cake definitely DID fall apart.  Since it's a shame to waste perfectly delicious marble cake I repurposed it for a trifle for Saturday night.  Into the container it went in crumbly little bits.

I ran to the store after all of my cookies were done (all 8 dozen or so!) to get another mix and baked another one before I went to bed.  This one was really attached to the pan and came out in sections.  I forced it all out of the pan by beating on it and then left it to cool on the counter and hopefully stick back together!

Amy wanted to make a pirate-themed cake and had picked up a bunch of fun decorations for it.  We had a good time putting it together and it turned out pretty cute.  We did the piping gel water trick from Heather and Bear's wedding cake and used brown sugar for the sand.  Arrrrrgh!

I like the "gold" around the treasure chest!  That was such a creative idea, Amy!

After the carnival was over and the castle cake off to its party, I put together the trifle.  Since I figured this is the one you might actually try to make, I took step-by-step pictures of the process so you'd know how to put together a trifle. 

****Funny trifle story tangent:  One Christmas my sister-in-law, my grandmother, and I all read about and made the same trifle.  Ha!****

Okay, back to the autumn trifle.  Here's the cast of characters:

First, bake a cake that falls apart.  If you're too good to mess up a cake, bake a good one and then break it off into 1 inch cubes.  Layer these in a trifle bowl (or a clear bowl will do).

Next, make some pudding.  I went with butterscotch (sugar-free...shhhh!).

Then, once it's set, you scoop half of it on top of the cake in the trifle bowl and spread it around to make your second layer.

Do the same thing with half of your Cool Whip (lite Cool Whip...shhhh!).

Then you do it all over again!  If you're making a different version with fewer of each ingredient and can squeeze in three whole sets of layers, go for it.

For the fininshing touch:  a sprinkling of candy corn!

There you have it:  a delicious autumn trifle.  Happy fall, y'all!