Happy 2nd Birthday Planet Four: Terrains

Happy Birthday Planet Four: Terrains! Last Thursday marked the second anniversary of the launch of Planet Four: Terrains. Thank you for all of your help over the past two years. We couldn’t do this without you. To celebrate here’s a recipe for a Martian South Polar Trifle for you to make for your own Mars party. It’s inspired by this recipe:

• 1 package (20 ounce) chocolate cream filled cookies like Oreos or Hydrox
• 16 ounces of cream cheese
• 1/4 cup of unsalted butter
• 2 cups of  powdered sugar
• 2 small packages of instant vanilla pudding mix
• 3.5  cups milk (recommend dairy milk  – skim to whole works fine)
• 1 tub (20 ounce) of whipped topping (not canned whipped topping but the kind you find in the freezer section). ( You can also make your own from scratch using whipping cream if you like. Just add a little bit of powdered sugar mixed in to taste)
  

Making the ground layer: Place chocolate cream filled cookie in a bowl or plastic bag, saving 4-6 cookies for the top later. Use a rolling pin, bottom of a glass, etc to crush the cookies. Place 3/4 of the crushed cookies on the bottom of a nine-inch glass pie plate or any glass container so you can see through the sides if possible.

Making the seasonal ice sheet mixed with seasonal ice and boulder: Soften the butter., then mix together cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar until smooth (electric mixer or whisk is fine). With whisk combine the pudding mix with the milk until smooth and slightly thickened. Fold together cream cheese mixture, whip topping, and pudding mixture.  Add 2-3 drops of  red food coloring to get a light red color (the red food color and the power sugar represent the atmospheric dust trapped in the ice sheet). Then mix in the remaining 1/4 of the crushed cookies to represent boulders trapped in the ice sheet. Pour the mixture over the ground layer of cookies.

Topping of seasonal fans: Crush the remaining few cookies very finely, sprinkle on the top to create seasonal fan shapes

Refrigerate the trifle for 3 hours or more before serving.

Enjoy!

The inspiration – seasonal fans in the South Polar region as imaged by HiRISE in the Southern spring or summer.