Prue Leith Is the ‘Queen’ of This Dessert — and It’s Virtually Easy

Prue Leith is best-known as a choose on The Nice British Baking Present, the place contestants make elaborate desserts like towering layer truffles and 3D “biscuit” sculptures. However Leith’s favourite dessert to make at house is kind of easy in comparison with these show-stoppers — and requires no baking time in any respect. 

“At any time when we’ve leftover cake, biscuit or pastry of just about any kind, I flip it right into a trifle,” Leith writes in her newest cookbook, Life’s Too Quick to Stuff a Mushroom, which incorporates 5 recipes for the basic English dessert. 

In actual fact, Dame Leith calls herself the “queen of trifles.” 

A basic English trifle options layers of sponge cake soaked in sherry or one other fortified wine, custard cream, fruit, and a whipped cream topping. However you possibly can assume past the English trifle template to make riffs like a Caramel-Pear-Cheesecake Trifle or Black Sesame Banana Cake Trifle. Right here’s find out how to “trifle” absolutely anything. 

The best way to make a trifle 

The fantastic thing about a trifle is that you simply don’t really want a recipe, and it may be as easy or fancy as you need it to be. You can also make all the things from scratch, you possibly can lean fully on store-bought elements, or you possibly can take a semi-homemade method. Say you may have leftover cake layers — slice them into cubes and prime with ready-made lemon curd or caramel sauce. Or you possibly can physician up store-bought pound cake with selfmade custard cream and recent fruit. 

Whether or not you’re utilizing selfmade or store-bought elements, right here’s a tough components for this choose-your-own-adventure dessert. 

1. Begin with a big trifle dish or bowl. Should you don’t have a trifle dish, you should utilize a big mixing bowl, ideally glass to point out off the layers inside. (When assembling, you possibly can line the elements you wish to exhibit across the fringe of the dish, reminiscent of slices of jelly roll cake or recent fruit for a Blended-Fruit Trifle.)
2. Add a cake layer. This may very well be the basic sponge cake, panettone, pound cake, brownies, stale croissants, or any base that can absorb the flavors of the trifle. Slice the cake into cubes or strips and line on the underside of the dish. Leith likes so as to add an optionally available step of spreading the cake layer with one thing candy like orange marmalade, strawberry jam, and even Nutella.
3. Soak the cake layer in order for you. For an English-style trifle (or an Italian zuppa inglese), you possibly can soak or brush the cake layer with a liqueur or spirit. Sherry is the basic selection for an English trifle, however you may also decide to make use of amaretto, brandy, rum, limoncello, or a non-alcoholic choice like a fruit syrup.
4. Add a creamy layer. This may very well be custard, mousse, prompt pudding, and even recent whipped cream. (Observe you can add a layer of cream beneath the primary cake layer if you happen to favor.)
5. High with fruit or different mix-ins. Suppose sliced strawberries or bananas, toasted nuts, crushed-up candies, or crushed cookies like Oreos or gingersnaps. 
6. Repeat. Repeat layers till you get to the highest of the bowl, ending with the creamy layer or a layer of recent whipped cream.
7. Garnish. High off your masterpiece with extra recent fruit, crushed sweet, nuts, or crushed cookies.

Be at liberty to, um, trifle with this template based mostly on what you may have out there and your favourite flavors. Nonetheless it seems, nobody goes to cross up an enormous bowl of cake and cream!