Don’t worry, this isn’t another mug cake recipe.

Perhaps you feel you’re already in a chocolate induced coma post-holidays. But if you’ve indulged in sweets of the candy cane variety, or if you still have holiday cheer to spread, this is the dessert to make people love you.

I’ve personally been battling flu-like symptoms that are extremely unappealing and have prevented me from eating food in the quantities I would have liked over the holidays. Lasagna and peanut butter balls on Christmas Eve, cheesy potatoes and spiral ham on Christmas day, curry and stretch bread on Boxing Day.

I have done some cooking though!  I made swiss bacon scallion dip, two massive salads to feed about 20 people each, pretzel jello, orzo with roasted vegetables, and now death by chocolate. Tomorrow will be a second trifle, and probably some seafood tortellini for our Hilton Head party. I’m currently guzzling tea with honey and lemon in hopes that I can indulge to my fullest potential tomorrow.

In other news? Well, there isn’t any. Holiday parties were fun- we played lots of Things, Santa brought Kevin an X-Box, and I have one hour left in my audio book, Gone Girl. I thought Dexter was sick and twisted but this brings it to a new level. I’ve listened for 18 hours thus far so I guess that makes me a little bit sick, too. Oh and we’ve watched Pitch Perfect twice. Aca believe it.

So anyway, this trifle. The title should speak for itself.

Death by Chocolate

2 boxes of brownie mix

2 boxes of instant chocolate pudding

2 cups heavy whipping cream

4 tbs powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 cups crushed candy bars

Prepare the brownies as directed. You could of course make your own brownies, but for this I don’t think it’s worth the effort.

Prepare the pudding as directed, too. Same thing- this is a recipe I love for chocolate pudding, but the boxed kind works fine here. I used instant. A good tip is to cover the pudding with plastic wrap so it doesn’t form a skin.

I whipped my own cream, but if you wanted to cut every corner you could use store-bought of that as well. Combine the heavy cream, powdered sugar and vanilla. Use a hand mixer at increasing speeds until it thickens- it will probably take 3-5 minutes depending on your mixer.

Crush your candy bars in a food processor, or with a rolling pin and plastic bag. I used heath bars, but I’ve also done Butterfingers. You can use anything you like, although I think it works best with these two because they crumble well and don’t get soggy. If you’d rather use Snickers or Reeses, be my guest.

Then we layer! Brownies, pudding, whipped cream, and crushed candy bar. This recipe is enough for three layers of each. Using a trifle dish is best because it looks fancy, but if you don’t have one that’s okay. I would probably eat this out of a brown paper bag.

I’ll try to be more exciting and give you recipes that are less Sandra-Lee esq. ASAP. Happy Holidays!