A Not so Tipsy Trifle Recipe

As far as my Dad was concerned, Christmas wasn’t Christmas until someone placed a large decorative glass bowl of devilishly sweet trifle onto the buffet table. Whenever my Mother would ask what sweets should be prepared for our Christmas day feast, “Trifle!” was always the answer. Onto a little bit of history about the trifle recipe.

Trifle History

The humble trifle is an English invention that started life sometime in the 1500′s as a whipped cream dessert flavored with ginger and rose water. Eventually the custard was added as well as alcohol to soak the sponge and help create the pudding like texture. The Italians also have a version of trifle which they call Zuppa Inglese which means English soup!

Growing up in the Southern hemisphere, Christmas day has always been  a warm occasionally blistering hot affair. Once we’d finished ripping the colorful wrap from our presents, a trip to the beach or outdoors for  a barbecue was usually on the cards. Christmas fare came in many shapes and  sizes from the traditional Ham on the bone with whole seeded mustard, right through to a freshly caught crayfish, sliced down the middle, slathered in creamy butter and thrown on the hot grills to  barbecue and sizzle.

Trifle has the wonderful ability to be either  a hot day dessert or a mid winter treat, but Trifle will always be summer food to me, thanks to my wonderful Dad’s love of its layered spongy goodness. Many stories and variations have been written about trifle, and my Dad’s favorite version omits the alcohol and includes lots of summer sweet berries, egg yellow custard and lashings of sweetened whipped cream. I’ve taken Dad’s delight one step further and have included grated dark chocolate for added taste and interesting texture.

Summer Berry and Chocolate Trifle

Makes one extra large glass bowl to serve 10-12 as part of a dessert buffet or 6-8 as the only dessert.

This dessert must be started the day before you intend to eat it.

Ingredients

1 punnet of strawberries ~ hulled and cut into quarters

2 punnets of fresh summer berries of your choice like rasperries, blueberries or boysenberries

1/3 jar of good quality pitted cherries + 1/2 cup of the cherry juice

1/3 cup of brown sugar

300mls full fat milk

1 vanilla pod ~ seeded scraped

8 large  free range egg yolks

75g caster sugar

300mls of cream for whipping

3 heaped Tbsp of icing sugar

1 medium sized trifle sponge

150gms of bittersweet dark chocolate ~ 120g chopped and 30g grated

A handful of fresh berries for garnishing the top of the trifle

Method

• Prepare the  berries  by placing the fresh berries of your choosing into a saucepan along with the brown sugar. Place onto medium to high  heat or induction setting 7 and bring the berries to a gentle simmer. Allow the berries to cook until soft and a wonderful syrup has formed. Allow to cool.
• Gently heat the milk in a heavy bottomed saucepan on medium heat or induction setting 6 along with the scraped vanilla seeds and vanilla pod. Whilst the milk heats whisk together the yolks and caster sugar in a large bowl until well combined.
• Heat the milk until it almost comes to the boil and then pour over the yolks and sugar whilst whisking to combine well. Remove the vanilla pod and toss know that you’ve extracted all the flavor from it.
• Pour the custard mixture back into  a clean pot and place on a medium to low heat or induction setting 5 and gently cook stirring constantly until the custard thickens , or coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
• Break or cut the trifle into large chunks and place a generous layer of the sponge on the bottom of the glass bowl bowl you intend to serve it in.
• Using the juice from the cooked berries and the juice from the cherries, pour half the  liquid over the sponge. Add another layer of sponge and pour over the remaining juice.
• Top the soaked sponge with half the chopped chocolate and then cover with the berries and cherries.
• Pour over the cooled custard smooth on top with a spatula.  Place cling film directly on to the custard layer  and set in the fridge to cool and set overnight.
• Just before you are ready to serve the dessert, whip the cream and icing sugar until it forms semi stiff peaks.
• Remove the cling film from the bowl and sprinkle over the remaining chopped chocolate and top with the whipped cream.
• Garnish the top of the trifle with fresh berries and a good generous sprinkling of the grated chocolate. Cover again with cling film and keep chilled in the fridge until ready to serve.

Do you have a favourite trifle recipe?

As summer  sizzles its way through  Sydney (Australia), so does the abundance of produce that is available at the local markets. I am impressed and sometimes over whelmed by the beauty and splendor that is on offer at local  markets and especially LOVE summer for its colourful and juicy bounty.

On one such market expedition with my tongue protruding and my tastebuds salivating,  I thought all my christmases had come at once when I came across a box full of scarlet red plum tomatoes for $6.99.

How could I  turn down such a bargain ?

My head was reeling with all the wonderful recipe possibilites that tempted and taunted me when deciding what to do with this ripe summer harvest. Fresh homemade tomato sauce? chunky tomato chutney? or perhaps, delightful jars of olive oil packed semi dried tomatoes?

My heart though eventually went with a recipe I started making a few years ago whilst working for the lovely Bill Granger. His dear friend Skye Gyngell from Petersham Nurseries in London had given him a recipe for Tomato chilli jam which I have adjusted slightly making this recipe literally worth breaking the law for.

It’s sweet and sour, salty and spicy and perfectly balanced. It is versatile in its applications where you can have it as a dip, try it with some pungent cheese, devour it as a pasta sauce or crave it on a side of toasted sourdough bread with fresh ricotta and mint leaves.

Either way, it’s a must try when tomatoes and summer are ripe for the picking.

Ingredients:

Makes enough for 6 large jars

4kg of plum tomatoes

4 Tbs yellow mustard seeds

350mls red wine vinegar

150gms of fresh ginger ~peeled and grated

14 cloves of garlic ~peeled and crushed

10 red chillies ~ deseeded and finely chopped. Choose your chillies by order of heat – the hotter you like them the smaller the chillies

300gms of palm sugar

8 Tbs of fish sauce

6 tsp cumin powder

6 tsp garam masala

6 tsp cumin seeds

6 Tbs brown sugar

1/4 cup olive oil

Sea salt flakes and freshly ground black pepper

Methodology:

Preheat the oven to 200C on Bake

Remove the edible core from all the tomatoes using a sharp knife and discard the unwanted cores.

Slice the tomatoes in half length-ways and lay them into a couple of roasting trays, flesh side facing towards you.

Drizzle with olive oil, cumin powder and garam masala. Sprinkle over the brown sugar and cumin seeds and seasonwell with salt and pepper.

Roast in the oven for 30-40 minutes or until the tomatoes begin to caramelise and brown  nicely.

Toast the mustard seeds in a dry pan until they go ‘POP’, then grind to a fine powder with a mortar and pestle.

Into a large pot add all the ingredients including the roasted tomatoes and cook on the lowset heat possible for 2-3 hours until the mixture is sticky and jam like in consistency.

Make sure you stir frequently to prevent the JAM from sticking to the base of the pot.

Spoon while hot into sterilised jars and and seal and store in the fridge for up to 1 month.

photo by Allerina & Glen MacLarty

Firstly prepare your fish bones … I’ve always wanted to start a dessert post with just such a statment.

Had we been preparing this Italian dessert tradizionale we would have started with the preperation of our fish bones which were used as the thickening agent.

Techonolgy now on our side, we are able to utilise a sprinkle or two of gelatin… thank fully.

Panna cotta hails from the Emilia -Romagna region of Italy,  the long held strong hold of Italian Gastronomy. For centuries the people of Emilia-Romagna have been delighting our palates and amplifying our bellies with such regional delights as Prosciuttio di Parma, Parmigiano Reggiano and of course the frangible and lightly cooked panna cotta.

The literal translation of panna cotta is “cooked cream”, which it is only just . The gelatin is used to set the dessert and I have added white chocolate to this recipe to make it extra decadent.

This relatively simple dessert, consisting traditionally of only four ingredients is made challenging only in thought ~ as too much gelatin will cause the dessert to turn out rubbery, and conversely, too little gelatin will cause the dessert to run forth onto the plate. By nature, panna cotta should be wobbly and voluptuous as a womens bosom which is not hard to achieve if you follow this simple methodology.

Serve elegantly plain or when summer berries are in abundance with a spoonful of these macerated goodies for a  sweet-tart contrast.

Ingredients

180gms white chocolate

600mls full cream

4 Tbs caster sugar

1 vanilla pod ~ scraped of its seeds

3 tsp / 10gms powdered gelatin

1/3 cup of boiling water

6x dariole moulds ~ lightly greased with non stick cooking spray

3 handfuls of fresh berries such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, or blackberries.

2-4 Tbs caster sugar

1/4 cup of red wine, white wine or cider

Serves 6

Methodology

Into a heavy based saucepan place the white chocolate, cream, sugar and vanilla seeds.

Bring to a gentle simmer, stirring constantly to ensure the mixture is smooth and does not begin to catch on the base of the pot. Remove from the heat and allow to sit for a couple of minutes to give the flavours time to get to know each other a little better.

Sprinkle the gelatin over the boiling water and wait a few minutes for the granules to dissolve.

Pour the gelatin liquid into the cream mixture and stir through to combine.

Strain the mixture through a fine sieve to remove any potential lumps, and then divide the mixture between the 6 moulds.

Lightly cover the moulds with cling film and allow to set in the refrigerator for a minimum of 4 hours  ~ or overnight if need be.

Photo by ginnerobot

While the pannacotta are setting to their delicious jelly like state, you can prepare the berries to go with the dessert by heating them in small non-stick pan with 2 Tbs of caster sugar. Once you begin to smell the sugar caramelising slightly in the pan, add in a 1/4 cup of red wine, white wine or cider.

Allow the berries to come to a gentle boil so they begin to break down a touch and the flavour of the sauce begins to develop. Taste the sauce at this point ~ adding more sugar if the berries are particularly tart.

Remove the pan from the heat and leave the berries to sit and cool which once agian will help those wonderful flavours to shine through.

To serve your decadent dessert treat, unmold the panna cotta by running a sharp knife around the edge of the mould.

Hold the mould upside down in the palm of your hand and gentle shake the mould until the panna cotta comes loose and slides into your hand ~ now slid the dessert on to a deep dished plate and surround with berries and a spoon or two of the lovely berry sauce.

Photo by kthread

You know how  memories can sometimes be triggered by certain smells and distinct aromas?

The smell of freshly fallen  rain hitting hot asphalt is reminiscent of playing hide-and-go-seek with my older brothers and the neighborhood generation Y ~ running through our backyard until we heard the call that it was bed, bath or dinner time.

The sweet lingering smell of honeysuckle flowers brings back memories of my bedroom in our old house as the honeysuckle vine used to grow along  the side of the wall and almost come creeping through my window.

And nothing speaks volumes of summer more than the smell of succulent juicy peaches, ripe and tender, dangling from the tree patiently waiting to be plucked and devoured.

I’m taken back to beautiful memories of running through the peach orchard, picking as many of these wondrous fruit as my little plastic bucket could carry whilst constantly wiping away the peach juice dripping down my chin as I scoffed the warm golden globes.

Peaches  when in abundance  were treated in only a few ways in my household. They were left to eat as is, fuzz tickling the back of your throat, or they were preserved in heavy syrup for leaner times.

As I’ve grown into my chefs jacket, I’ve had the great fortune of being able to experiment with this delightful stone fruit and have given you a couple of my favorite ways with this summery sensation.

Photo by mccun934

Grilled peach crumbs with mascarpone and balsamic syrup

Ingredients:

2 large firm peaches ~ stoned and sliced in half

4 Tbs brown sugar

4 tsp butter ~ chilled

4 Tbs white flour

4 Tbs mascarpone

Balsamic glaze

Fresh mint leaves

Procedure:

• Make the crumb topping by mixing together the flour and brown sugar and rubbing the chilled butter in with your fingertips
• Lay the peach halves on a roasting tray and top with crumb mixture.
• Grill for 15-20 minutes on medium to high until the peach is tender and the crumb topping is golden and crisp.
• Lay two peach halves per plate and top with a dollop of mascarpone and a drizzle of balsamic syrup. Garnish with a few mint leaves and serve.

Serves 2 as dessert

photo by jules:stonesoup

Poached Peaches with honeyed chestnut cream and sticky meringue

Ingredients:

2 firm peaches ~ halved and stoned

¼ cup of chestnut puree

1- 2 Tbs of dark liquid honey

¼ cup of thickened cream

2 soft meringues ~ broken into pieces

1 liter of sugar syrup

Cinnamon sticks

Star anise

½ Vanilla pod ~ scraped

Procedure:

• Poach the peaches gently in the sugar syrup with a few cinnamon sticks, star anise and the vanilla pod until the peach is tender, but still in tact. This should take approx 20 minutes.
• Cool the peach slightly.
• Sweeten the chestnut puree by mixing into it 1 Tbs of the dark honey.
• Assemble the dessert by stacking peach, meringue, cream and chestnut puree into a wine glass or small glass bowl ~ remembering to watch the layers as you assemble so that the dessert looks appealing in its glass confines. Finish with a small drizzle of honey, a cinnamon stick and vanilla pod.

Serves 2 as dessert