One of the most versatile and easy desserts to make, trifle, has been around for a long time. It's made from thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, fruit juice or jelly, and whipped cream. These ingredients are usually arranged in layers.

And when I say "versatile," I mean it. I've used leftover yellow cake instead of sponge cake. I've used Angel Food cake too. I've used leftover sugar cookies (roughly chopped) when I didn't have any cake at all. I've substituted whipped cream cheese for the custard. I've also used sweetened plain Greek yogurt when I didn't have whipped cream. And I've used pie fillings instead of fruit juice or jelly. This is a dessert that works with just about anything you have on hand.

And two of my favorite experiments were a chocolate trifle and a pumpkin pie trifle. First the chocolate trifle: I had some leftover chocolate cake so I cubed it and layered it with minted chocolate pudding, chocolate whipped cream cheese (chocolate ice cream topping mixed into it), and lightly minted whipped cream. I topped it with shavings from a Hershey's Bar. Oh my!

And for the pumpkin pie trifle I really went out on a limb. I had 3 slices of pumpkin pie leftover and a small frozen sponge cake, neither one alone was enough dessert for our family dinner. So I combined the two. I cubed the pie slices and sponge cake. I whipped some cream and added some pumpkin pie spice. And I whipped some cream cheese. The secret was oodles of spiced whipped cream. I garnished it with lots of toasted and chopped pecans. These layers combined well and everyone loved this concoction!

I recently saw a version of this idea on allrecipes.com. The chef used hot fudge sauce and added layers of banana and strawberry slices. Chocolate and fresh raspberries would be good as well. And another interesting combination using raspberries includes lemon curd as part of the layering. You can see, the combinations are limited only to your imagination.

One final note I'll pass on: You don't absolutely have to have a trifle bowl to create this beautiful dessert. You can use any clear glass bowl, really. Clear glass is important though, because of the layering-you want to be able to see how pretty this dessert actually is.