TRIFLE 🍰

It was my dad’s birthday in July and I wanted to make him something nice. My dad loves the colours green, pink and white in that order. My mom and I decided to plan our menu accordingly so we decided to have a strawberry dessert. It was supposed to be a layered dessert with the layers in the following order – strawberry cake, strawberry custard with strawberry slices, strawberry cake, strawberry whipped cream and garnished with strawberry slices. Except when I told Lulu of my ambitious project she reminded me that Strawberry season was over and told me to make a Trifle instead. That’s how this idea was born.

I now had to come up with ‘green’ fruit options and other fruits that would go well with the said green fruit. Suddenly like magic the ingredients fell into place and I was ready to make the dessert.

Ingredients:

For Custard:

500ml milk

3tbsp custard powder

6-8 Tbsps of sugar

For Whipped Cream:

200ml Fresh cream (Amul)

1Tsp Corn starch

6-8 Tbsp of powdered sugar

2-3 drops of Vanilla essence

For the Layers:

1 Kg plain sponge cake (I got it from a bakery.)

6-8 Kiwis

3-4 Bananas

30 Apricots

A fistful of almonds

1 Cup fresh orange juice

½ Cup water

Method:

Prepare custard:

• Take the custard powder and add 3tbsp of raw milk and mix it well.

• Boil 500ml milk and add sugar to it. Once the milk starts rising add the custard mix to it slowly while stirring.

• Keep stirring to ensure there are no lumps and the mixture is smooth.

• Stir the custard for about 5-7 minutes and then take it off the heat and let it cool.

Glazed Apricots: (Skip if you are using fresh fleshy apricots)

• Soak apricots for about 30 minutes. (I prepared the custard while the apricots were soaking.)

• Then deseed the apricots and sauté them in a non-stick pan on a low flame.

• Once the apricots turn a golden brown, switch off and set aside. (Takes less than 5 minutes.)

Fruits:

• Peel and slice the kiwis.

• Peel and slice the bananas and soak them in orange juice. (This is to prevent the banana from browning.)

Setting the layers:

• If you want to bake your own sponge please check Lulu’s Vanilla sponge recipe.

• You’ll have to bake it either a day earlier or very early in the day for it to be ready to be layered.

• Slice the cake horizontally. (Take the cake slab and use either a very big knife or thread to split the cake into layers without messing with its dimensions (lxb). The height of course will reduce!)

• Place the cake in a glass bowl and poke it with a chopstick/fork to make a few holes.

• Drizzle a little orange juice on the sponge to make it moist.

• Then layer the kiwis, bananas and apricots on the sponge.

• Then evenly add a layer of custard.

• Then again add a layer of cake and repeat afore mentioned layers.

• I was able to get only two tiers of these three layers.

• Place the dish in the fridge.

Whipped cream:

• Take the fresh cream and ensure it is placed vertically in your fridge. After having placed it in the fridge for an hour leave it in the freezer until you are ready to use it. 

• This helps keep the whey at the bottom of the carton and you only end up using the cream portion.

• Take a huge basin and line it with ice packs/ice cubes.

• In to a smaller basin, scoop out all the cream (Except the bottom layer of whey.) and start beating it with a whisk. If you find that your cream isn’t forming any peaks after 15 minutes of whisking it, add corn starch.

• Add sugar and vanilla essence and continue whisking the cream till it starts peaking.

• Once it is ready, bring the bowl of layers out and gently pat the whipped cream on top.

• Once the whipped cream is added let the Trifle set in the fridge overnight.

Blanched almonds:

• Soak almonds in water overnight.

• In the morning peel the almonds and slice them.

Just before serving:

• Top the trifle with kiwis, apricots and blanched almonds.

• Your trifle is set, fresh and ready to serve.

Notes:

• When the custard cools it usually tends to form a layer of cream. I personally don’t like cream so I whisk the custard just before using it so that the creamy texture blends with original smooth texture.

• I soaked the bananas in citrus juice to prevent it from oxidizing.

• I ended up with a huge cake hence I ended up making two sets of trifle.

• Making whipped cream was the toughest, but using fresh cream and whipping it gives it such an airy lightness – it literally is like eating a cloud. Once you have developed a taste for homemade whipped cream you will not be able to eat whipped cream from outside.

• You can also use whipping cream.

• I skipped bananas on top of the whipped cream layer only for aesthetics.

• You can also use plums, mangoes, apples, custard-apple pulp, oranges etc… depending on their availability.

P.S: For the step by step video head over to our page on instagram @bobetlulu