Favorite Holiday Dessert

The title should actually say, "Favorite Dessert" not just for holidays...  Dark Chocolate Raspberry Trifle.  Jake and Maggie requested it for Christmas dinner dessert this year.

Even though it has "dark chocolate" in the name, it actually has very little chocolate in it - just enough, in my opinion.

 You don't need a ton of ingredients, and if you go the "Sara Lee" route, it doesn't require any baking.  (In my opinion, Sara Lee make a pretty mean pound cake and if I don't have to bake it, hallelujah.)

The list of ingredients:  1 pint heavy whipping cream; 1/2 cup sugar; 1 family size Sara Lee pound cake; 2 8-oz. pkgs. cream cheese, softened; another 1/2 cup sugar; 2 tsp. lemon juice; 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla; fresh or frozen raspberries (about 3 cups) (reserve juice if using frozen); raspberry syrup; 1 large dark chocolate bar.

Beat the whipping cream and 1/2 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form.  Set aside.  Next, mix the cream cheese, sugar, lemon juice and vanilla until smooth.  Add 2 cups of the whipped cream and mix gently.

You'll need a trifle bowl or a big glass bowl. (Walmart sells cheap trifle bowls.  The Pampered Chef one is also nice; it has a pedestal and a lid.)  Cut your pound caked into slices - you'll need enough for three layers.  My trifle bowl is big enough to use 5 slices per layer, so I cut my cake into thirds, then cut each third into 5 equal slices.

Layer the pound cake in the bowl; and drizzle with raspberry syrup.  (I usually use fresh raspberries, so they don't have a lot of juice, hence the syrup - Torani's is good, it's just for flavoring, don't use  syrup for pancakes...)  If you use frozen raspberries, thaw them and then use the juice for this.

Next, spread 1/4 of the cream cheese mixture over your moistened cake, then it's time for the raspberries.  1/3 of your raspberries will go on top of the cream cheese. 

And then break up 1/4 of your chocolate bar into little chunks on top of the raspberries.  We like Ghiradelli's Intense Dark.  (And I know, it's a lot of thirds and fourths...it all works out in the end.)

Do two more layers like this...

And top with the remaining 1/4 of cream cheese; the rest of the whipping cream and the rest of the chocolate bar.   Serve immediately or refrigerate.  I usually refrigerate it for awhile to really let the raspberry syrup soak in.  Works great to make it the night before you need it, too.

Every time I take this somewhere, I get requests for the recipe, so I thought I'd share.  I always like a new, easy recipe that is company-worthy!  

This makes enough dessert to feed a good twenty people.  So if you make it just for your family and consume it all; just pick up a copy of Jillian Michael's 30-day Shred to make up for it...(best workout DVD ever!!)

I feel sorry for all the other mommies...

Jake and I used to have a conversation every night when I was tucking him into bed.  It went like this:

Me:  "I feel sorry for all the other mommies.  Do you know why I feel sorry for all the other mommies?"

Jake:  "Because they don't get to be my mommy?"

Me:  "That's right.  Only I get to be your mommy.  I am a lucky mommy."

When Maggie was old enough, one night as I was tucking her into bed, I said, "Maggie, I feel sorry for all the other mommies.  Do you know why I feel sorry for all the other mommies?"

Maggie (with a puzzled look on her face):  "Because you hit them?"

Yes.  Yes, I hit them all.  Watch out for this mommy.

It has been awhile.  No excuses.

Things are moving along in the Abrams' household.  Jake started basketball; Maggie is still swimming for the Stingrays, Scott is keeping busy with work and I've been attending more school board meetings than I thought possible.

Scott had a chance to sign up for a Continuing Medical Education (CME) course in the Bahamas, so we jumped on the chance.  His sister has lived there with her family for 20 years, so we try to get there when we can to see the cousins (and enjoy the ocean, of course).  It had been five years since our last trip, so we were very excited to be back.

We did very little sightseeing, but we did walk down to the Cloisters from our hotel.  It's ruins from a 16th century monastery from France.  It was dismantled in the 1960's and brought to the Bahamas and reconstructed.  Very random, I know.  It sits on some prime ocean-front property and seems a little out of place - it's nestled between some private residences.  But we had fun poking around and getting some pictures.

We also came across some lost children and took them with us.  I'm sure their parents won't mind.

We had great weather.  The first few days were a little windy, which makes the beach interesting, but there are tons of pools where we stayed, so no worries.

Thought we'd take some shots for our Christmas card.  This is about the way it went all day.

We told the lost children that if they didn't settle down, they'd have to live there just with each other forever.  That seemed to do the trick.

We all took a scuba diving class in the pool at our hotel.  It certifies you for 7 days to do ocean dives up to 20 feet.  Unfortunately, I flunked the pool test (not kidding) and these three went without me.

I sat on the boat.  In the rain.  Singing an old Veggie-Tales song.  (Scuba, scuba, scooby-dooby duba; here we go scuba, c'mon!)

They had a blast.

And found some interesting wildlife.  (It got put back in the ocean after pictures.)  That's a hermit crab (huge, I know!!)  Scott also brought a shell up and I was holding it when a baby octopus fell out of it and slimed my camera up.  Gross, gross, gross.

It was a great vacation.

We got back to Minneapolis and drove right into a monster snowstorm.  That was a Saturday night.  It was so bad, we didn't have school the following Monday.   We are thankful to be home safely!  Now on to Christmas...