5 days of christmas 2016 - individual raspberry trifles

5 days of christmas 2016 - individual raspberry trifles

• 20 Dec 2016

Christmas desserts are usually pretty traditional. In our house we always serve a hot Christmas pudding despite the 30°C weather outside. My workmates usually serve pavlova, cheesecake, trifle or sometimes all three. I love trifle and haven't made it in such a long time so I decided to make some individual trifles to share with you.



Normally I think of trifle as construction rather than cooking because you can make it entirely from shop bought ingredients. I went somewhere down the middle making the jelly, jam and sponge cake but drawing the line at custard.



You can buy really good quality vanilla bean custard from the supermarket so that's what I did to save time. You can buy the sponge cake as well if you like, but I really think you should give the raspberry jelly recipe a go, because it's pretty yummy and quite easy to make.

The raspberry jelly was adapted from this Donna Hay recipe. You'll need to start this recipe the day before serving to give the jelly time to set. The jelly is quite wobbly, like a pannacotta, which I actually prefer but if you'd like something that's a bit firmer, then add a another ½ - 1 tsp of gelatine powder. 

Here's the recipe for you. For all my recipes I use 60g eggs and use a 250ml cup and a 20ml tablespoon. My oven is a conventional oven not fan forced so you may need to reduce the temperature by 20°C 

Raspberry Trifles – makes 4.

1 quantity raspberry jelly

sponge cake – shop bought or home made

¼ cup red jam - raspberry, rhubarb or strawberry

2 tbs marsala or sherry

300mls prepared vanilla bean custard

1 cup cream, whipped

To serve

Fresh raspberries, icing sugar and a few mint leaves

Raspberry jelly

2 tsp gelatine powder

500 mls cranberry drink

⅓ cup caster sugar

175g frozen raspberries

Sponge cake

3 large eggs

½ cup caster sugar

1 cup self raising flour

1 tbs cornflour

1 tsp butter, chopped

¼ cup boiling water

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease and flour a 20cm x 30cm lamington pan, line base with baking paper.

Beat eggs in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light in colour. Gradually add sugar; beat for 8 minutes or until the mixture is thick. Mixture should form thick ribbons when the beaters are lifted.

Meanwhile, sift flour and cornflour together three times. Combine butter and boiling water in a small heatproof bowl. Sift the flour mixture over the egg mixture; using a balloon whisk or a large metal spoon, gently fold the flour into the egg mixture, then fold in the butter mixture. Pour mixture into prepared pan.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 25 minutes or until sponge springs back when touched lightly in the centre and the cakes comes away from side of pan. Turn cake onto a wire rack to cool. When cool, store in an airtight container until needed.

Raspberry Jelly
To make the jelly, place the gelatine and ¼ cup (60ml) of the cranberry drink in a bowl and stir to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes or until the gelatine is absorbed. Place the remaining juice and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Bring to the boil and cook for 1 minute. Remove from the heat, add the gelatine mixture and stir to combine. Set aside to cool for 20 minutes. Pour the jelly mixture into the base of a 4 small glasses and top with the frozen berries. Refrigerate overnight until set.

To assemble

Trim brown edges off cake, cut 4 rounds to fit into the glasses. You’ll only use about half the sponge cake. Slice the cake horizontally to make a 2 cm slice and spread a thin layer of jam over the base of the sponge. Gently place the sponge round over the raspberry jelly layer before drizzling the top of the sponge with some of the marsala. Carefully spoon ¼ of the custard over the sponge layer then repeat with the remaining glasses. Refrigerate the trifles for a few hours to allow the flavours develop.

Just before serving, top each trifle with whipped cream and decorate with a few raspberries and mint leaves. Sift over a little icing sugar just before serving.

See you all again tomorrow with day 3 of the 5 days of Christmas.

Bye for now,

Jillian