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| General Category : Desserts |
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| Food Group : Fruits, Chocolate and Sweets, Cheese/Other Dairy |
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| Trifle should, I think, be a soft mound of sponge, cream, custard, alcohol and fruit. Nothing should interfere with its general creaminess, nor would I like anyone to try and temper its indulgence. A trifle is as wantonly extravagant a dessert as you can get and I would never attempt to lessen that. A spoonful of trifle should be a moment of unbridled self-indulgence, and I always make mine with that in mind. I don't like jelly, because it meddles with the voluptuousness of it all. You could make your own sponge and your own custard too, or you could do it the way I most often do it -- that is, with a cheap raspberry jam Swiss roll for the cake layer and that ready-made custard you can buy from the chiller cabinets in supermarkets. |
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Ingredients
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sponge cake: about 200g |
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sweet wine: Vin Santo, orange muscat |
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double cream: 300ml |
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custard: 250ml |
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raspberries: a couple of good handfuls, |
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plus strawberries, blueberries etc to scatter |
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Preparation
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Crumble the sponge cake into rough lumps and put them into a large dish or six smaller ones. Pour over enough sweet wine to soak it thoroughly.
Pour the cream into a cold mixing bowl and whisk it slowly. The consistency is crucial if the trifle is to be perfect. You want it to be thick enough to stand in soft folds, thin enough to almost slide off a spoon unaided. I find this easier when both the cream and the mixing bowl are very cold. Stir half the whipped cream into the custard.
Whiz the berries in a blender or mash them to a purée with a fork. They should be almost at pouring consistency; if not, then add a splash of mineral water. Drizzle most of the purée over the sponge cake. Spoon the custard over the sponge too, letting it fall lazily over the cake to merge somewhat with the puddle of crushed raspberries. Spoon the remaining cream over the top, then scatter over some whole berries and finish with a drizzle of raspberry sauce.
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More Information
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Some other good things
I once had an anonymous letter from someone berating my suggestion of putting bananas in a trifle (it must surely prove my point about the tyranny of recipes that the writer felt they had to hide their identity in order to disagree). I still put them in my trifle, at least I do sometimes.
There is something so nannying about the marriage of bananas and custard. I also have a few other suggestions:
If you use macaroons or ratafia biscuits instead of cake, give them a good while to soak up the liquid so that they are soft.
Use blueberries, loganberries, blackberries and golden raspberries instead of the raspberries.
Try a purée of cooked gooseberries, sweetened with quite a bit of sugar and thoroughly chilled, in place of the raspberry sauce.
Alternatively, whiz a can of apricots in a blender, sharpening them with a squeeze of lemon juice.
Sprinkle chopped pistachios or toasted flaked almonds on top of the finished trifle.
An orange and lemon trifle
Soak the sponge cake (which could be one with orange zest in it) in sweet wine mixed with a dash of limoncello or mandarin liqueur (you can buy miniatures of these). Mix half the cream into the custard as before but mix the second half with a few spoonfuls of real lemon curd. Use strawberries or blueberries and perhaps some segments of pink grapefruit and mandarin instead of the raspberries.
A summer berry trifle
The raspberry and redcurrant filling for the summer pudding will add a thoroughly welcome sharpness to the mixture of sponge, custard and cream. No need to add any extra berries, though some flaked almonds, toasted till golden brown, wouldn't go amiss.
A coffee and chocolate trifle
Soak the sponge in sweet Marsala, then pour over a cup or two of sweetened espresso. Mix the cream and custard as above and top with the second layer of softly whipped cream and a thick dusting of cocoa powder. |
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Source
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Excerpted from Appetite by Nigel Slater Copyright© 2002 by Nigel Slater. Excerpted by permission of Random House of Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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