Unicorn Mini Trifles

Fluffy cubes of colorful cake, sprinklelicious Funfetti mousse, and crushed Golden Birthday Cake Oreos! Probably the most magical trifle ever!

Happy New Year, everyone!

It’s officially 2018, which means that it’s officially time to take down the holiday decorations, go back to work, and pretty much snap back into reality. Womp, womp…

Although the excitement of a new year can feel inspiring, I can’t think of a more boring and depressing month than January–colder temps, shorter days, and rain, rain, RAIN. So to offset the gloom of this unbearably long and drab month (sorry if you’re a January baby), I decided to dub January, Unicorn Month!!!

Because there’s really nothing more cheerful or magical than unicorns. Am I right?

So for the entire month of January, I’ll be sharing a fun and colorful new unicorn-themed recipe each and every week. I’m getting excited just thinking about all of the bright and sprinkle-filled recipes I have planned!

To kick Unicorn Month off, I really don’t think you can get any cuter than these enchantingly charming Unicorn Mini Trifles.

Right???

Just look at the little horn and the fun marshmallow ears! I had a blast making the little unicorn toppers, and they’re actually super duper easy to put together. The horns are just made by molding pink and yellow starbursts together. I came across the idea on Two Sisters Crafting, and thought it was genius.

The marshmallow ears are just as easy to make. However, as you’ll see, I cut the marshmallows smaller than exactly on the diagonal. When I originally cut them in half diagonally, the ears ended up being way too big. Of course, I realized this AFTER doing 8 sets, but hey, at least they don’t take that long to make!

One thing I forgot to include in the steps was to pinch the tips of the marshmallow together at the very end. It adds more character to the ears 😉

The cake is just a simple white box mix that I dyed different colors. Instead of dividing them into separate pans to bake, I went the lazy route and just poured them all into one pan.

Why wash four pans when you can wash one? Besides, the overlapping of colors was actually very pretty!

Pondering the perfect filling to make for these trifles, I had this image in my head of a unicorn eating Funfetti cake. (These are the things that play in my mind.) It was then and there that I decided to make a fluffy Funfetti mousse. I guess you could call it a cake batter mousse as well. Funfetti just seems…funner!

The filling couldn’t be easier to make because guess what?! We’re going to use yet ANOTHER box of cake mix. I used Funfetti, but white would also work. To all those everything-needs-to-be-homemade-Martha-Stewart snobs out there, this recipe might be a tad disappointing, but hey, you can’t get that cake batter flavor unless if you use a box mix. 

The cake mix is combined with some cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla, lemon juice, almond extract, and some milk. Then I lightened it up a bit by folding in some freshly whipped cream. Although Funfetti cake mix has sprinkles mixed in already, it just didn’t seem like enough for this filling, so I added in 1/4 cup of my own. FYI, since the color from the sprinkles tends to bleed into the filling the longer it sits, I would fold in the sprinkles just before assembling the trifles.

As I’ve done with all my mini trifles in the past, I like to include a layer of crushed Oreos. For these Unicorn Trifles, it definitely had to be those aromatically buttery Golden Birthday Cake Oreos. Seriously, these Oreos smell like heaven.

I’d have to say that my favorite part about making these mini trifles is assembling them. And with the addition of the cute little Starburst unicorn horns and marshmallow ears, it’s like a little arts and crafts project. You almost feel bad for eating them.

Well, almost…

Unicorn Trifles

Fluffy cubes of colorful cake, sprinklelicious Funfetti mousse, and crushed Golden Birthday Cake Oreos! Probably the most magical trifle ever!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 2 hours hrs

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 35 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 8 Trifles

Ingredients

  

Cake:

• 1 box white cake mix + ingredients listed on box
• Food coloring Pink, Blue, Purple, and Yellow

Funfetti Mousse:

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 8 ounces cream cheese softened
• 1 ¾ cup funfetti Cake mix
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ⅛ teaspoon almond extract
• Pinch of salt
• ¾ cup + 2 Tablespoons powdered sugar
• ¼ cup milk
• ¼ cup colorful sprinkles*
• 1 (15.25 oz) package Golden Birthday Cake Oreos

Unicorn Horns:

• 4 pink starbursts
• 4 yellow starbursts

Unicorn Ears:

• 8 large marshmallows
• Sprinkles

Instructions

 

Make the Cake:

• Preheat oven to 350ºF and spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Prepare white cake mix according to box instructions.
• Divide cake batter evenly among four bowl, then dye each to desired shade. Pour each batter into each corner of the baking dish (see photo above). Bake for 32-35 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out with few moist crumbs attached. Cool completely.

Make the Funfetti Mousse:

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream until stiff peaks form. Transfer whipped cream to another bowl, then return mixing bowl to mixer. Switch out whisk attachment with the paddle attachment.
• To the mixer, add the cream cheese, Funfetti cake mix, lemon juice, extracts, and salt. Beat on high until smooth. Add powdered sugar, and continue beating. Mixture will be thick. Gradually stir in the milk until smooth and creamy. Fold in the sprinkles.
• Transfer filling to a pastry bag or a gallon-sized ziploc bag with the tip of the corner cut off.

Make Unicorn Horns:

• Take one pink starburst and one yellow starburst. Soften each individually by heating in the microwave for 5 seconds. Unwrap both starbursts, then roll each into a long skinny log, making sure that the ends are pointed and each log is of equal length.
• Place the yellow and pink skinny log side by side, press the tips together, then slowly twist them around each other until you reach the bottom. Press the bottom two tips together. Cut twisted log in half to make two unicorn horns. Repeat with remaining starbursts.

Make Unicorn Ears:

• Take a marshmallow and use clean scissors to cut marshmallow slightly less than on the diagonal (see photo above). Do the same with the other side of the marshmallow that you just cut the first ear off of. Pinch the tips of the ears together. Dip the sticky side of the marshmallow into sprinkles. Repeat with remaining marshmallows.

To Assemble:

• Cut cooled cake into little cubes. Coarsely chop all but 6 Oreo cookies (you can just eat these). Place about half of the cake cubes into the bottom of each jar, then pipe about half of the filling on top. Divide the chopped Oreo cookies evenly among the jars, shaking slightly to create an even layer. Add another layer of cake cubes, followed by the rest of the filling. Top each trifle with two "unicorn ears", one "unicorn horn", and more sprinkles, if desired.

Notes

*Depending on which sprinkles you add to the filling, they might bleed a little like mine did. You can choose to leave them out if you don't want to risk the colors bleeding into the filling. If you do add them, I'd recommend folding them into the filling just before assembling the trifles.