A very happy thanksgiving to all of you. Here is something simple if you
want to try for this occasion. It’s a bit of a summery treat using peaches and
berries, but you can always substitute the fruits with anything of your choice
or use canned ones or frozen ones as I did. After all the berry picking that I
did few weeks back and making the fresh blackberry ice cream, I was left with
thought of what to make with the leftover juicy blackberries. I still had loads
of them which I had to freeze later to prevent them from rotting. Blackberries
are my favourite berries for baking and desserts and I had a whirlwind of ideas
as of what to make with blackberries.
I have already tried few recipes using blackberries including jam, macarons
and a crumble cake which are all great. So I wanted to try something different
this time. Crumble sounded like a great idea but crumbles and I don’t go well together.
I somehow don’t like crumbles and that too after having it from a restaurant recently,
I went totally against it. I had lots of egg yolks sitting in the fridge from
my macaron baking and some sponge cake that I tried. It had to be something
with custard, berries and cake and this trifle was born in my kitchen.
I always wanted to give trifle a go, but I dint plan to make a custard from
scratch. As I had lot of egg yolks, I decided to use them up than throwing them
away. I have tried making custard before as I always get few egg yolks after
baking macarons. If you have good vanilla and use full fat cream and milk, you
will get rich tasting, silky smooth custard.
I put them all together just under 40 minutes of which 25 minutes was
taken for making custard! It has to be cooked slowly, with much attention and
constant stirring. As you are dealing with eggs, too much of heat cooks the
eggs and scramble them if you don’t pay enough attention. You really don’t have to make authentic custard here for this recipe.
You can use custard powder and make the simplest of custard which is what I wanted
to do and would have made it really easy. But I had to save the yolks from
binning, so made the custard from scratch.
Anyhow, the recipe is very versatile; you can just play around with any
combination of good fruits like grapes, canned pineapple, apples, and berries.
You can substitute strawberries for blackberries and you don’t even have to
cook it. You can use fruit cocktail that comes in can and use ready-made
custard instead of the fresh ones. You can also use dry fruits like figs and
dates along with nuts. If you are pressed for time, get a shop bought cake,
canned fruits, pre-packed custard and assemble it all together. You can wet
your cake with syrup that comes in the can. Nothing can get simpler. But here
is a more elaborated version of trifle, with home-made custard for you to try. Peaches and blackberries are one of the best to use together.
Blackberry and
Peach trifle
Serves about 10
Ingredients:
300g blackberries (You
could use about ½ kilo if you want more berries in your trifle), plus extra for garnishing
1/3 cup of water
¼ - 1/3 cup caster sugar
2 tins of 420g can of canned peaches in syrup
500g pound cake, butter cake or Madeira cake, cut into 1-2 inch cubes
For whipped cream:
300 mls whipping cream/double cream
2 tbsp icing sugar
a splash of vanilla essence
For custard:
5-6 large egg yolks
400mls whole milk
300mls double cream
1 vanilla pod
100g caster sugar
2 tbs corn flour or use 1 tbsp of custard powder for depth of flavour
Preparation:
1.Cut cake into 2 inch pieces.
2. Add blackberries, water and sugar in to a pan and bring to boil,
reduce and simmer for 5 minutes-7 minutes until the fruits go soft. Strain and
reserve the juice which will be about a cup.
3. Drain the peaches and discard the liquid. Slice the peaches into
smaller size if need be.
Make custard:
1. In a sauce pan, heat milk and cream. Split open the vanilla pod,
scrape out the seeds and add them to the milk along with the pod. Simmer them
to scalding point, i.e. simmer it until the mixture is hot and starts steaming
and small bubbles. Do not boil. Remove from heat and then pass this through sieve
and leave aside for about 5 -10 minutes to cool it down. Discard the vanilla
pod.
2. Meanwhile, using an electric whisk beat together the egg yolks and
sugar until it is pale yellow and thick; for about 6-8 minutes. Add in corn
flour and whisk again.
3. Pour the milk into the egg mixture in thin stream whisking simultaneously
to avoid scrambling the egg from the hot milk.
4. Strain the egg-milk and pour the mixture in a heavy base saucepan and
heat it on a very low heat stirring constantly for about 20 minutes to avoid
cooking and scrambling the egg. Once the custard gets thick and coats the back
of the spoon, take off the heat. Transfer
to another bowl, cover it using cling film to prevent from skin forming. Let it
cool completely before layering the trifle.
In another bowl, add icing sugar to whipping cream and using an electric
beater, whip until it forms soft peaks. Add in vanilla essence and mix.
To assemble:
1. You can arrange this in a large 2 litre clear glass bowl or small individual
serving bowl.
2. Place few pieces of cake as the first layer. Dribble the strained
juice of blackberry all over to wet the cake.
3. Scatter some blackberries and peaches over the wet cake
4. Scoop in some custard and level with spoon and repeat the layer once
more.
5. Top it up with softly whipped cream and chill for several hours until
everything is set.
6. Garnish with peaches, berries and nuts.
Notes:
I have used warm custard while
layering the custard, which was still unset. So the beautiful layers of trifle
have not been formed as the custard seeped down through the layers of fruits and
cake. If you use custard that is completely cooled, you will be able to see
more prominent layers of fruits, custard and cake.
You could also use more fruits. I have
used just minimal amount of berries here (300g).
