Let's call it Pittsburgh Mess

Back in 2000 (escaping the Sydney Olympics!) Andrew and I spent three weeks traipsing around the USA. We spent a few days staying with our friend Lisa in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which turned out to be a fascinating and friendly city. One night Lisa invited a bunch of friends over to meet the Australians – I'm guessing not too many Antipodeans visit Pittsburgh – and many of them brought food. One person brought a fabulous chocolate trifle and I so enjoyed it I asked her to email me the recipe. When it arrived I was a little taken aback: it was a mélange of processed foods! Store-bought cake, chocolate bars, pudding from a packet, cream from a can. I tend to make things 'from scratch' so never actually got around to replicating the lovely chocolate trifle. I've never forgotten it though, and recently stumbled across some imported Daim bars (which I think was the chocolate bar used) here in Canberra. So here's my (seriously belated) attempt at a chocolate trifle ...

First, I made a batch of my famous chocolate fudge pudding. It's usually eaten piping hot and slathered with whipped cream, but this time I allowed it to cool.

Then, I whipped 150 ml of cream.

Then, I mixed the chopped-up, cooled pudding with the cream and about 100 g of crumbled Daim bars.

Wildly unphotogenic but quite delicious. Oh, and it's a little reminiscent of a chocolatey version of deconstructed pavlova (a.k.a. Eton Mess), hence the name Pittsburgh Mess ;-)