July 10th was National Piña Colada Day! In honor of that special day, I made a new dish that was so popular with my family I just couldn’t wait to share it with you!
Introducing the Piña Colada Trifle!
The beauty of this desert, other than how amazing it tastes, is how simple it is. You just follow a basic trifle recipe, with a couple ingredient swaps and 1 small extra step. You can find a more typical trifle recipe as part of my favorite take-along foods.
I used boxed white cake mix and follow Budget Savvy Diva’s tips for making it taste more homemade. I skip the butter to keep the fat down and I’m always happy with the results. While the cake was baking I made 2 boxes of Coconut Cream pudding and chilled them.
Drain the juice from a canned of pineapple, set aside. Strain the pineapples to get all the excess juice out. Set aside a few pieces to put on top of the trifle, dump the rest in a bowl and mash. Drain juice, cover the pineapples and leave in the fridge until needed.
Once baked, cool the cake for at least 15 minutes. Use a fork or knife (or shish kabob stick, like me), to poke holes about 1/2 an inch apart.
Once you’ve got your holes, mix 1 cup boiling water and 1/2 cup pineapple juice (use the juice drained from the can) with the pineapple Jell-O. Pour the mixture evenly over the cake and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight. Using juice instead of water will give the Jell-O an extra flavor burst.
Note: Pineapple Jell-O can be hit or miss in the supermarket. I found a pack of 3 boxes on Amazon, in case you can’t find any in your local store.
When chilled cut the cake into small cubes.
To assemble, arrange cake in a flat, even layer on the bottom of the trifle bowl. You may want to press it down so everything fits. I also find that there’s a bit more cake than I need, so I leave the edge piece in the pan and use them only if needed.
Add about half of the mashed pineapple chunks, then half of the pudding in a layer on top of the cake. Finally, add a layer of whipped cream. I’ve used cool whip and homemade whipped cream before. This is the first time I used canned (for the sake of ease) and it worked really well.
Repeat the layers to fill the dish and top with pineapple. Serve chilled and watch it disappear!
