Happy New Year! I hope that your 2006 is a wonderful year full of cheer and happiness. Note to self: I do not work for Hallmark, nor can I ever hope to.
New Year's Eve was spent, as most years, feasting with family and friends. And as with every year, I obsessed with out-doing what I had served the week previous for Christmas Eve dinner. This year I served Mesclun with Blood Oranges, Green Beans with Lemon & Pine Nuts, Delia Smith's outrageously good, to-die-for Crunchy Saffron Roasted Potatoes (regrettably, no longer available in her Recipe section online, but if you ask nicely, I will haul out the recipe and type it out) and Seafood Stuffed Salomon Roulade with Beurre Blanc sauce. Of course dessert was, for me, the piece de resistance: my Tipsy Trifle. Now I say "my" as over the years I have honed this recipe and made it my own. I also have no recollection from where the original recipe hailed. I will concede that there are probably hundreds of similar copies on the internet, but damn it, this one's mine. All mine!!!
First I bake a yellow Cake. In years past (sans bebe), I have made a Jam Roly-Poly (Jelly Roll to some) which really looks pretty all cut up in the bottom of a trifle bowl. But this year, and here's the 'confession' of my culinary sin: I used...boxed mix! Yup! You really did read that right! I, the self-proclaimed 'food snob' plunked down my hard-earned 99 Canadian cents for a box of Betty Crocker's yellow cake mix aka "fluffy stuff" or FS from here on in. Of course, you have to understand that I am no longer a carefree gourmet, baking cakes here and there at my whim and leisure. I now have to contend with a force so great, few can overcome: a demanding toddler. Usually, she orders me to pick her "UP! UP!! UP!!!" at the precise 'critical time' during a baking recipe. But most troubling is her serious penchant for the big KitchenAid mixer. Hauling it off the shelf sees her running full speed to the kitchen to set up camp and be underfoot. So I resorted to FS. But I did mix it proudly with my new, handy-dandy KitchenAid hand mixer that Santa was kind enough to bring me for Christmas. Yes I am a kitchen gadget fiend. Yes I could always use more! But I digress.
'My' Tipsy Trifle
1 recipe yellow cake, box mix, sponge cake or pound cake sliced 1/2 inch thick
1/2 to 3/4 cup Chambord Liqueur or Bristol Cream Sherry
1/2 cup or so of raspberry preserves or jam
2 cups of fresh or frozen raspberries
2 - 3 cups (depending on the size of your trifle bowl) of thick creme anglaise, or English Devon style custard
3 cups of heavy cream, softly whipped with 2 Tbsp. sugar
I baked FS in a 9 x 13 inch pan, slicing it once cooled crosswise into 1/2 inch wide strips, leaving them out overnight on a baking rack to dry out slightly. This 'drying' step is critical, since FS (especially FS, but other cakes too) would turn into a mass of goo once you add all the boozy additions that have made me famous. OK I'm boasting here. Famous in my teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy circle of friends & family. Jenny likes the sauce I hear you say? Well, actually no, not really. My liver is in tip-top shape as I enjoy my sauce in tiny quantities, except when it comes to desserts.
Next day, line your pretty trifle bowl (of course, after rummaging around for over 1 hour I couldn't find mine, only to remember that it was buried somewhere in a mountain of storage boxes in my in-laws' storage cabinet 15 km's away!) with the slices of cake, FS or otherwise, dousing liberally with Bristol Cream Sherry. Or you could do my variation, douse liberally with Chambord liqueur, but not feeling the need to part with $50 of my hard earned cash, I used the more traditional cream sherry. Then spread with a thin layer of good quality raspberry preserves, or heck just jam is fine too! Preserves just sound so much better, don't they?
Scatter on a handful of raspberries. Next a healthy glop of custard and next an equally healthy dose of whipping cream, repeat layers ending with a good bit of cream. Decorate as desired. Or just leave plain, as is.
Ta Da....
New Year's Eve was spent, as most years, feasting with family and friends. And as with every year, I obsessed with out-doing what I had served the week previous for Christmas Eve dinner. This year I served Mesclun with Blood Oranges, Green Beans with Lemon & Pine Nuts, Delia Smith's outrageously good, to-die-for Crunchy Saffron Roasted Potatoes (regrettably, no longer available in her Recipe section online, but if you ask nicely, I will haul out the recipe and type it out) and Seafood Stuffed Salomon Roulade with Beurre Blanc sauce. Of course dessert was, for me, the piece de resistance: my Tipsy Trifle. Now I say "my" as over the years I have honed this recipe and made it my own. I also have no recollection from where the original recipe hailed. I will concede that there are probably hundreds of similar copies on the internet, but damn it, this one's mine. All mine!!!
First I bake a yellow Cake. In years past (sans bebe), I have made a Jam Roly-Poly (Jelly Roll to some) which really looks pretty all cut up in the bottom of a trifle bowl. But this year, and here's the 'confession' of my culinary sin: I used...boxed mix! Yup! You really did read that right! I, the self-proclaimed 'food snob' plunked down my hard-earned 99 Canadian cents for a box of Betty Crocker's yellow cake mix aka "fluffy stuff" or FS from here on in. Of course, you have to understand that I am no longer a carefree gourmet, baking cakes here and there at my whim and leisure. I now have to contend with a force so great, few can overcome: a demanding toddler. Usually, she orders me to pick her "UP! UP!! UP!!!" at the precise 'critical time' during a baking recipe. But most troubling is her serious penchant for the big KitchenAid mixer. Hauling it off the shelf sees her running full speed to the kitchen to set up camp and be underfoot. So I resorted to FS. But I did mix it proudly with my new, handy-dandy KitchenAid hand mixer that Santa was kind enough to bring me for Christmas. Yes I am a kitchen gadget fiend. Yes I could always use more! But I digress.
'My' Tipsy Trifle
1 recipe yellow cake, box mix, sponge cake or pound cake sliced 1/2 inch thick
1/2 to 3/4 cup Chambord Liqueur or Bristol Cream Sherry
1/2 cup or so of raspberry preserves or jam
2 cups of fresh or frozen raspberries
2 - 3 cups (depending on the size of your trifle bowl) of thick creme anglaise, or English Devon style custard
3 cups of heavy cream, softly whipped with 2 Tbsp. sugar
I baked FS in a 9 x 13 inch pan, slicing it once cooled crosswise into 1/2 inch wide strips, leaving them out overnight on a baking rack to dry out slightly. This 'drying' step is critical, since FS (especially FS, but other cakes too) would turn into a mass of goo once you add all the boozy additions that have made me famous. OK I'm boasting here. Famous in my teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy circle of friends & family. Jenny likes the sauce I hear you say? Well, actually no, not really. My liver is in tip-top shape as I enjoy my sauce in tiny quantities, except when it comes to desserts.
Next day, line your pretty trifle bowl (of course, after rummaging around for over 1 hour I couldn't find mine, only to remember that it was buried somewhere in a mountain of storage boxes in my in-laws' storage cabinet 15 km's away!) with the slices of cake, FS or otherwise, dousing liberally with Bristol Cream Sherry. Or you could do my variation, douse liberally with Chambord liqueur, but not feeling the need to part with $50 of my hard earned cash, I used the more traditional cream sherry. Then spread with a thin layer of good quality raspberry preserves, or heck just jam is fine too! Preserves just sound so much better, don't they?
Scatter on a handful of raspberries. Next a healthy glop of custard and next an equally healthy dose of whipping cream, repeat layers ending with a good bit of cream. Decorate as desired. Or just leave plain, as is.
Ta Da....
