A Birthday Cake for a Trifle

Yesterday was Duchess's birthday, which means that there was some serious fun to be had. I, of course, decided to make her a birthday cake, but I ended up having a lot less time than I would've thought, so I couldn't make one that was particularly elaborate. I found this recipe for a chocolate pudding poke cake, which met all of Duchess's preferences: poke cake, had chocolate, and not a plain white cake. However, since it was such a simple recipe, I couldn't leave it at that! I decided to crush up a bunch of Oreos and add those to the cake batter. I went to the store on my lunch break on Monday instead of taking a nap (Happy birthday, Duchess! That was my gift to you.) and bought all the ingredients.

Because the sack lunch auction was Monday evening, I didn't get to start the cake until 10:00 p.m. I almost forgot to add the Oreos, because I was trying to hurry, but just before I poured the batter into the pan, I remembered. Boy, I would've been mad if I'd left them out! The recipe gives all the directions for baking the cake, and then gives instructions on making the pudding to pour on top. I thought I'd be smart and make the pudding while the cake baked so the process wouldn't take as long. However, it turns out I am not smart. I made the pudding so early that it started to firm up well before the cake was out of the oven; thus, it did not so much sink down into the holes I'd poked into the cake.

The other consequence of this was that I had a LOT of pudding left to spread over the top, and the whole cake turned out rather gloopy. I guess it still tasted ok, but if I'd had time, the best thing to do would've been to just make it into a trifle.