I love big parties with lots of people and lots of food. I will serve about eighty to a hundred people in my backyard this September, the day before my daughter's wedding. After lots of barbecue and potato salad, I'll make my usual standby-dessert - trifle. I find it fun to serve a big dessert with a name that means "insignificantly small."

I was first exposed to trifle in England, and then across the Middle East and Africa where the English colonized and spread their customs for hundreds of years. Now, to call what I make, trifle, might be bordering on incorrect, as I've taken so much license as the dessert evolved over the years.

Traditional trifle is made with sponge cake, which has been drizzled with sherry, jellies, fruit, and pudding or custard. It is served in a glass bowl and is quite pretty with the colored fruit and jellies showing through the sides of the clear glas bowl. During the Christmas holidays, I make trifle with spice cake, pumpkin bread, raspberries and cherry pie filling, chopped pecans, refrigerator cheesecake mix, eggnog, and top with whipped cream. I have made it with brownies and chocolate custard and peanut butter cheesecake mix. I've made messes and delights, but we've enjoyed them all.

For big outdoor parties I start with a clear glass punch bowl and place layers of sliced yellow cake around the bottom, then scoop on layers of cherry pie filling, straight from the can, then layers of Jell-O cheesecake-mix, then more yellow cake slices, then raspberries, and more cheesecake-mix. I keep layering, changing only the fruit, mandarin oranges, then repeat the cherry pie filling and the raspberries. It takes an entire yellow sheet cake, drizzled with a bit of Amaretto, three cans of cherry pie filling, two small or one large can of mandarin oranges, three containers of raspberries, and two cheese cake mixes.

I top the entire mess with real whipped cream if I have the time, and skip it if I'm too busy to bother with it. I toss some pecans or pralines on top if I have them and don't worry about it if I don't have any. People never seem to notice what I didn't do, just what I did do. Store it in the fridge if it will fit. If it won't, wait until close to time to serve to construct the final product, right after you clean up the mess from the first course.

When serving a lot of people, time management is critical. A large punch bowl of trifle will fit right into the plan, and your guests will love it; I promise.

Learn more about this author, Will Kester.
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