'Twas the Night Before Easter

Easter Sunday is usually crazy busy for us, so this year we decided to do our Easter celebration today, the day before Easter. I made an unconventional meal this year, since my mother-in-law has been asking for a particular dish from me for awhile now ~ lasagna. After experimenting a few times, I was able to come up with "crockpot lasagna" - which I actually think is better than when it's cooked in the oven. But I'll save that for another post. Now, onto. . . DESSERT!

I made a spring cake trifle for dessert this year. Since I have been making Easter cookies for about a month now, I wanted to make something with spring colors, but something other than cookies. I have to admit that the best baking ideas I get come to me when I'm sleeping! That's where this idea was born!

You'll need about 10 strawberries, 2 small cans of mandarin oranges, 2 or 3 bananas, and at least 5 kiwi. (Yes, I know that there are only 4 kiwi in this picture; that is because I sent my sweet hubby to the grocery store and he forgot how many I said to get. I still love him though.) Instead of the kiwi, you could also use white (green) grapes, although I absolutely LOVED the kiwi in this. Also, instead of the bananas, you could use pineapple, but I don't know if I would like the taste as much. The bananas made it so YUM!

I doubled a silver white cake recipe. Before baking, I divided the batter into fourths, and colored each fourth with pink, orange, yellow, and green food gel coloring.

Then I baked the cakes. Once they were completely cool, I put them in a ziploc bag overnight. They became incredibly moist!

For the pudding, I used 2 - 5.8oz french vanilla pudding boxes. After letting it set up for about 15 minutes, I divided the pudding into fourths and colored it pink, orange, and green. You don't need to color the yellow, because the french vanilla already has a yellowish tint to it! Yay! Remember, when coloring, a little goes a LONG way.

Cut up all your fruit. You're going to want them in bite size pieces, but not so small that they become mush.

Crumble your cake into small pieces.

Now, you're ready to layer!

Start with your cake . . .

Then pudding, then fruit. I started with green, then yellow, then orange and pink.

And the finished product.

SO YUM.

Happy Easter everyone!

Keep it sweet,

Elizabeth