Trifle Wars 2020

There are two special people in my life who have made desserts for family events for as long as I can remember- my sister and my husband. Even though they have never been competitive about it, we have been silently judging them for years and keeping track of the winners in our heads. I felt like it was time to publicly pit them against each other in a competition- "Trifle Wars 2020."

What's at stake- the contestants will be competing for a 10-day Hawaiian beach stay at a 5-star resort (airfare included), a shopping spree at Target (where else) and $5,000 in cash. Not really. We're talking about trifles here, people. The prizes are bragging rights for a year and.....

....a golden whisk! It's Luckywhisk's version of the Stanley Cup. Isn't it beautiful? Let's meet the contestants...but first a song. Get excited ya'll. It's about to go down. 

Shelly, a hotel executive...enjoys walking her three dogs and buying them specialty treats and hand-knit sweaters from Etsy.  

Brutus (in goggles) and Ginger have momentarily stopped their favorite activities (eating holes in walls, chasing bees and stealing each other's treats) to root for their mommy.

Contestant # 2: Jay, a medical professional...enjoys watching football and...watching football. He occasionally cries tears of joy when the Washington Huskies win a big game. Go Dawgs! 

It took some bribing to get him to pose for this pic.

Shelly chose to make "Cookie Dough Trifle" by Delish. I asked her to send me pics of her process but she said that she "forgot" and sent me the following pics after I complained: 

semi-sweet chocolate chips

whipped cream

and a cream soda that's not listed in the ingredients.

Boom.

The Cookie Dough Trifle repeats 4 layers- cookie dough, whipped cream, crumbled cookies and chocolate pudding. It uses 10 ingredients-

for the cookie dough: butter, brown sugar, vanilla, graham crackers, salt, milk, mini chocolate chips
for the whipped cream layer: mini chocolate chips, whipped cream, 8-9 chocolate chip cookies 
for the chocolate pudding: instant chocolate pudding mix, milk 

The homemade cookie dough doesn't use eggs or flour so it's safe to eat. 

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Onto Trifle # 2: 

Jay chose to make a Key Lime Trifle (Betty Crocker). 

The Key Lime Trifle uses 8 ingredients and repeats four layers- a lime-cream mixture, ground granola bars, chopped white chocolate and angel food cake pieces. The layers are then topped with a whipped cream and grated lime mixture.  

The recipe recommends that you make angel food cake first using the Betty Crocker mix, however, Jay just bought a cake to save time. He also substituted white chocolate morsels for "good quality, coarsely chopped white chocolate." Risky. 

Clouds of fluffy goodness...why can't my bed be made out of this.

It was at this stage of the process that Jay almost won immediately. The smell of the lime being grated was incredible and permeated the entire kitchen. 

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​Judging

Despite the fact that both contestants were somewhat unwilling participants, I did not hold it against them in the final scoring. 

Cookie Dough Trifle: The Cookie Dough Trifle was beautiful in appearance. It had a great texture. The cookie dough bits tasted like actual cookie dough. It was slightly on the dense side, and rich, but not overly rich. If you are fan of anything cookie dough, you will absolutely love this trifle. 

Key Lime Trifle: The Key Lime Trifle had more of a plain appearance. Some added lime slices at the top would have helped in this department. The trifle was light and had a good texture. I loved how strongly the flavor of the lime came through in this dessert. The angel food cake layer makes it a great choice for summer. I think it might taste better with the coarsely chopped white chocolate as opposed to the chips, but they weren't a bad substitute. It was slightly dry, but nothing a scoop of ice cream couldn't fix. 

Results....drum roll please

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The winner is....first I would like to thank everyone who participated. You worked hard and your trifles were proof of that. Well done. If I could give the golden whisk to both of you, I would. But I can't. There can only be one winner of the coveted golden whisk. 

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And that winner is... Shelly! The Cookie Dough Trifle came out on top. Congratulations! You're simply the best! Now that you have won Trifle Wars 2020, what are you going to do? 

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Just so you know, Luckywhisk will not be paying for that, Shelly.
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What kinds of trifles have you made? What do you recommend?