Does this look luscious, or what? It was. What you can’t see is the heap of Creme Anglaise on the top, and a full cloud of whipped cream. But I thought this shot of the trifle bowl was more interesting. What you see is nothing but bananas, cubes of pound cake, fruit cocktail pieces and the cranberry gelatin mixture.
Regularly I read the blog Al Dente. I’ve mentioned it before – it’s a compendium of individual recipes provided by well-known chefs who have cookbooks at Amazon. They spotlight one recipe at a time, offered up in a blog format, from the books of these authors. So you get a little glimmer of what the cookbook is all about.
So anyway, I was looking at Robert Irvine’s recipe for a Raspberry Porter Trifle with Chocolate Ganache and Whipped Cream. His was designed to be layered in individual wine or parfait glasses, but since I was serving this at someone else’s home I didn’t want to transport them. So, I made it in my tall trifle bowl instead. I didn’t have raspberry gelatin on hand, but I did have cranberry, and since it ’tis the season, cranberry seemed more suitable anyway.
There are several things different about this trifle: (1) it’s softer than others I’ve made, i.e., more like a pudding consistency; (2) it doesn’t contain sherry, but does contain porter, a British ale; (3) the creme anglaise was more like a sauce and was poured on TOP of the trifle, not in the layers as is more traditional; and (4) the gelatin is in liquid form when it’s spooned into the bowl, to firm up somewhat in the refrigerator after it’s soaked into the cake.
We have a family member who is British (specifically, Julian is married to our daughter-in-law’s sister) and they invited us for Christmas Dinner at their home. A typical English Holiday dinner was planned, so would I make dessert? Actually I made two (because my cousin who is wheat-intolerant couldn’t eat the trifle – the pound cake obviously has flour in it). So I also made a flourless chocolate cake which I’ll post very soon. Both desserts were sensational, so said Julian, the British host. The only comment he had was that in England bananas are hard to come by, so his family’s trifle would not have contained them.
This does need to be chilled for several hours before serving, but the bananas will begin to brown and turn to mush if you go past about 48 hours. I’m including the chocolate ganache in the recipe, but I didn’t serve it (I forgot, but also there wasn’t room in the trifle bowl for it anyway). Some folks at the dinner thought the chocolate would have made it too rich. I’d like to have tasted it just to see, but oh, well. Next time maybe. With the creme anglaise being such a soft type, as you angled the spoon down deep into the bowl, the sauce oozed down into the layers with no problem. The whipped cream did the same. Had the chocolate ganache been there, it too would have oozed everywhere.
I’ve altered the recipe to fit my trifle bowl (less pound cake only) and with notes on the couple other changes I made. If you’d like the original click on the link up above to Robert Irvine’s recipe. I doubled the recipe and had enough to serve at least 16 people. If you’d like the revised recipe to serve 8 (half of the below), email me at ctndt AT cox DOT net and I’ll email you the PDF recipe.
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Raspberry Porter Trifle with Chocolate Ganache and Whipped Cream
Recipe: Robert Irvine
Servings: 16
RASPBERRY LAYER: (or use cranberry as I did)
6 ounces raspberry gelatin powder — or cranberry
4 tablespoons sugar
2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup ice water
1 cup Porter — or strong ale (or cream sherry)
CREME ANGLAISE:
1 cup milk
1 cup heavy cream
2 vanilla bean — or vanilla extract to taste (approximately 3 tablespoons)
1/2 cup sugar
8 whole egg yolks
FRUIT LAYER:
2 large cans fruit cocktail — (29-to-32-ounces) drained
16 ounces Sara Lee pound cake — thawed and cut into 3/4-inch cubes
4 whole bananas — sliced and tossed with lemon juice
GANACHE:
8 ounces chocolate chips — OR chocolate squares, finely chopped
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
TOPPING:
1 cup heavy cream — whipped until light and fluffy with an electric mixer
1. Method for the raspberry layer: Dissolve the gelatin and sugar in boiling water. Add the cold water and porter. Loosely cover with a clean paper towel and set aside at room temperature.
2. Method for the crème Anglaise: Pour the milk and heavy cream into a heavy bottomed saucepot and scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the pot (or add vanilla extract). (If using a vanilla bean, put the vanilla pod in the pot as well.) Add half the sugar to the pot and bring to a simmer (just below a boil). In a small bowl whisk together the egg yolks and the rest of the sugar and temper it by adding a small amount of the heated milk mixture to the bowl while whisking constantly (known as a liaison). Now pour the liaison (egg mixture) into the milk pot, stirring constantly. You are only heating it. Do not boil. Do not cook. The idea of a liaison is to incorporate the eggs and avoid making them into scrambled eggs! You want the mixture to begin to thicken so it will coat the back of a spoon. Remove from heat and allow to cool, then remove vanilla pod and discard, and refrigerate until chilled.
3. Assembly: You’ll be making 3 layers of canned fruit-poundcake-bananas-gelatin, so portion out the ingredients appropriately. First spoon fruit cocktail into the bowl as a base layer. Follow with a layer of cubed pound cake, then a layer of sliced bananas. Using a large spoon or ladle, drizzle the gelatin/porter mixture on top of the fruit. Repeat until you’ve used up the canned fruit, pound cake, bananas and all the gelatin. Refrigerate for 2 to 4 hours until the gelatin is set. (Later note: I think this needs to chill for FAR more than 4 hours – maybe 24. The Jell-o finally firms up after 8 hours. I preferred the flavor of this on day two and three better than on day one anyway.)
4. Method for the ganache: A few minutes before serving, make the ganache. Place the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl. Bring the cream to just under a boil in a small saucepan. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let sit for a minute or two. Stir gently with a rubber spatula until the chocolate is melted and smooth. If the chocolate is not melting readily, nest the bowl in another bowl of very hot tap water.
5. Presentation: Spoon crème Anglaise over the chilled trifle and drizzle ganache over. Spoon whipped cream (with a bit of sugar added) on top to finish. Serve immediately. (Later note: when serving leftovers, prepare more whipped cream. On day three there wasn’t any more creme Anglaise left, nor whipped cream, so you at least need more whipped cream.)
Per Serving: 511 Calories; 31g Fat (53.5% calories from fat); 6g Protein; 55g Carbohydrate; 2g Dietary Fiber; 239mg Cholesterol; 175mg Sodium.
Marie
said on December 28th, 2008:
That is one delicious sounding Trifle and what a brilliant picture!!
It WAS delicious. I’ll be making this one again. And thanks for the nice comment about the photo. As we bloggers know, taking photos of food is not an exact science! . . . Carolyn T
Toffeeapple
said on January 2nd, 2009:
Bananas difficult to come by in England?! Just where does Julian come from? There might have been a deficiency during and just after the WW2 but not since then. Having said that, bananas are not usually used in trifles. I like the pictures and envy you that glass bowl…
Well, he grew up outside of London. But his heritage is Indian. I know they ate both Indian food and typical English fare, so I don’t know. He just said when he was growing up (this would have been the 50’s and 60’s), bananas were a bit hard to find in grocery stores. He’s lived here in the U.S. since he was a young adult. But, I think perhaps the family had a cook, and maybe she/he only shopped at Indian stores and perhaps bananas weren’t a regular part of the Indian diet? I really don’t know. Just a thought. I’ll have to ask him. And as for the trifle bowl, I surely don’t use it often enough, but I love that I HAVE one. . . Carolyn T
Peggy Yost
said on November 22nd, 2009:
Your trifle looks delicious! Instructions easy to follow. My BIG question I need help with is what does one use to actually serve the trifle with? I will be making my first one to take to a “red-hat” Christmas party and want to serve it elegantly..please help me. Thanks you.
Peggy Y
I use a long, long handled spoon, hopefully with a wide bowl shape to the spoon. I’ve been known to put a sign on a trifle bowl too, inserted on a long bamboo skewer, telling people to dig deep so they get all the layers. I also usually take out one or two servings – nobody wants to be the first one to take a serving. With this trifle, the creamy topping was quite loose, so it oozed down into the layers. It was good that way, except that the early people ate most of it. Next time I might put the topping in layers deeper too. . . carolyn t