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Food
Just a trifle
Tramisu, the irresistible Italian dessert of ladyfingers and shaved bittersweet chocolate soaked in creamy mascarpone cheese, has had the dining public swooning for years now. Before that, the favored Italian dessert was zuppa inglese, literally "English soup," but in fact just another name for traditional English trifle. If it's cake and cream you fancy, look to the English, the indisputable experts in taking stale cake (and dry bread) and fashioning it into something heavenly. Their trifle is one of the great desserts in the history of cake and cream. It has the elements of tiramisu (soaking cake until it explodes with richness) without the chocolate, and with a little sherry or white wine sprinkled in. A vanilla custard sauce replaces the creamy Italian cheese. Trifle also has a haphazard quality. That is, the components of the dessert - cake, jam, custard, and fruit - go into a serving bowl any way you like. You can press thick wedges of cut-up cake sandwiched with raspberry jam against the sides of a glass bowl to make a striking presentation. Then, every time you make the dish, you can fiddle with your design. English trifles have been made for centuries, once with an ordinary cake called "Victoria jam sandwich," named for the queen and served everywhere for tea. The cake was sandwiched with jam, as its name implies, then doused with sherry and custard and topped with a syllabub. Syllabub is a delightful English dessert, often served on its own now, that consists of sweet wine (old versions used sweetened cider) beaten until frothy with sugar and cream. A dessert similar to trifle, called tipsy cake, was simply cake, sherry, and cream. To make a trifle today, you can use your own cake - but who has a cake around these days? - or a store-bought confection. The important piece, which you cannot buy, is the vanilla custard sauce laced with a pure extract. Think of it as a rich, melted vanilla milkshake. Then imagine it with cake. You won't wonder why the English became the experts on cake and cream. ENGLISH TRIFLE Cake: 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature Set the oven at 350 degrees. Grease 2 8- or 9-inch round cake pans, line them with parchment paper, butter the paper, and dust the pans with flour, tapping out the excess. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs one at a time and beat for 1 minute more. In a measuring cup, stir together the vanilla, buttermilk, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the liquids to the butter mixture and beat just to combine them. Beat in the flour. Divide the batter between the pans. Use a metal palette knife to smooth the tops. Bake the cakes for 30 to 35 minutes or until the tops spring back when pressed gently in the center. Remove the cakes from the oven and turn them out onto wire racks to cool. Place the cakes on a cutting board. Using a long serrated knife, split the cakes horizontally to make 4 thin layers. Spread the cut sides of all the layers with raspberry preserves, then reshape the cakes. Cut them into 2-inch pieces. Odd shapes are fine. Fruit: 1 package (16 ounces) mixed frozen berries, thawed In a large bowl, combine the fruit, sugar, lemon juice, and sherry. Mix gently and set the fruit aside for 1 hour. In a food processor, work half of the fruit to a puree. Mix it with the remaining fruit. Cover and refrigerate. Custard sauce: 5 egg yolks In a bowl, combine the yolks and sugar with 1/4 cup of milk. In a heavy-based saucepan, heat the remaining milk until it is scalded. Slowly ladle the scalded milk into the yolk mixture, stirring constantly. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook, still stirring, for 3 minutes or until the mixture thickens without boiling. Set a strainer over the bowl. Remove the pan from the heat and strain the custard. Stir in the vanilla. Sprinkle the sauce with the faintest coating of sugar. Let it cool. (You can refrigerate it for up to 2 days at this point, tightly covered with plastic wrap.) Garnish: 1 cup heavy cream To assemble: Have on hand a deep 8-inch serving bowl. Add more sugar to the fruit sauce if you like. Ladle a few spoons of the custard sauce into the serving bowl. Set the cut edges of cake (with the jam-seam showing) vertically against the edges of the bowl. Fill the center of the bowl with the odd-shaped pieces. Add a ladle of berry mixture. Continue layering custard, cake, and fruit. Cover the top with plastic wrap and set a plate on top, so it presses the contents lightly. Refrigerate the trifle for at least half a day (or as long as overnight). With an electric mixer, beat the cream, sugar, and vanilla until it holds stiff peaks. Spread the cream on top of the trifle. Serve at once. (Or you can refrigerate for 2 hours at this point.) SERVES 12 LIGHTER ANGEL FOOD TRIFLE Cake: 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar Set the oven at 350 degrees. Have on hand an ungreased 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom. Sift the confectioners' sugar and flour together two times. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt until the whites are frothy. Add the vanilla and continue beating until the whites begin to form soft peaks. Add the granulated sugar gradually, still beating, until the whites are stiff. Sift of the flour mixture over the whites. With a rubber spatula, fold it in. Repeat the sifting and folding 2 more times. With the spatula, gently transfer the batter to the pan. To eliminate air pockets, use a long metal spatula to cut through the batter in a circular motion without touching the bottom of the pan. Bake the cake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the top of the cake springs back when gently pressed with a fingertip. Remove the cake from the oven and invert the pan onto a metal rack. Let it cool completely. Ease a knife around the edges of the cake to release it. Pull out the cake by the tube. Ease the knife under it and down the tube. Turn out the cake. Custard sauce and fruit: 4 egg yolks In a bowl, combine the yolks and sugar with 1/4 cup of milk. In a heavy-based saucepan, heat the remaining milk until it is scalded. Slowly ladle the scalded milk into the yolk mixture, stirring constantly. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook, still stirring, for 3 minutes or until the yolks are cooked; do not boil. Set a strainer over the bowl. Remove the pan from the heat and strain the custard. Stir in the vanilla. Sprinkle the sauce with the faintest coating of sugar. Let it cool. (You can refrigerate it for up to 2 days at this point, tightly covered with plastic wrap.) To assemble the trifle: Cut the cake into thick 2-inch pieces. Have on hand a deep 8-inch serving bowl. Add more sugar to the fruit mixture if you like. Ladle a few spoons of the vanilla custard sauce into the serving bowl. Add pieces of cake, then spoon some of the berry mixture on top. Continue layering custard, cake, and fruit, ending with custard. Cover the top with plastic wrap and set a plate on top, so it presses the contents lightly. Refrigerate the trifle for at least half a day (or as long as overnight). To serve: Scatter the fresh berries on top, if using, and serve. SERVES 8 |
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