A Tale of Two Desserts- Part One: Trifle

It's a perfect Christmas here at our house. It's our tradition to spend the day together, just the two of us (plus dog and cat.) We enjoy a leisurely breakfast - today I made apple fritters and, for me, a couple of my homemade breakfast sausages. We lingered around the tree with our coffee and tea, opening gifts and making and receiving holiday phone calls.
The afternoon has been spent watching movies on TV, noshing on whatever we could find in the fridge. That included last night's leftover Parisian-style gnocchi with butternut squash and shitake mushrooms.
But this post isn't about breakfast, or about dinner. It's about dessert.

At the last minute, I invited a friend to have Christmas Eve dinner with the two of us. Now, if dinner had just been the two of us, I wouldn't have made any dessert. Dennis is perfectly happy without sweet temptations and I'm so happy to have them, I'll eat too much. But with another dessert eater coming over, I was ready to give in to temptation.

Just two days ago, in a lovely Christmas moment, a friend sent us an astonishingly delicious butter rum cake from Sugar & Spike. It was so good, and with a nudge from that same friend, thought suddenly about Trifle.

A traditional holiday sweet, trifle is made up of jam-smeared cake slices, doused in booze, then layered with creme anglaise/vanilla cream and fruit. Several of these layers are then topped with sweetened whipped cream.
I could already tell this butter rum cake would layer beautifully in a trifle. I peered into the depths of the refrigerator and saw about 3 oz of apricot glaze leftover from tart-making, three egg yolks leftover from some meringue art (post forthcoming,) - those would make a beautiful vanilla sauce, just add cream and milk and vanilla bean. I had some raspberries and blueberries. And there were all the wonderful liqueurs from the summer fermenting. In a glorious moment of inspiration, I remembered David Lebovitz' candied cherries (from A Perfect Scoop.) Suddenly, a trifle was born. I put it together in the early afternoon. By the dessert hour, it was heavenly. While making the trifle, I thought "this is how trifle came to be." finding bits and pieces all around the kitchen that come together in delicious beauty.
Trifle
Serves 4

Leftover pound cake, stollen or pannetone, about six slices
Jam - raspberry or apricot seems best
Brandy or Apricot or Peach liqueur
Vanilla custard (3 egg yolks, 1/4 c sugar, 1/2 c milk, 1/2 c cream, 1 tsp vanilla)
1 pt Raspberries, blueberries
Candied cherries**
1/2 c whipping cream, whipped to soft peaks
A beautiful glass bowl, about 1 qt size

Make the vanilla custard. Heat the cream and milk (I use the microwave and heat for about a minute.)
In a small saucepan, whisk together the sugar and egg yolks. Stream in the cream/milk mixture slowly, whisking all the time. Keeping the heat at medium, stirring constantly, the custard should thicken in about 5 minutes. Stir in the vanilla. Continue to heat until slightly thickened - stir with a wooden spoon, then drag your finger through the custard on the back of the spoon. When the line remains, the custard is done.)
Strain through a sieve into a bowl set in an ice bath, to cool the custard quickly.
Now make the trifle.
Start by spreading jam on one side of the cake slices.
Begin the layers with two or three slices of the cake pressed into the bottom of the bowl.
Sprinkle a healthy slosh of liqueur over the cake.
Add a few raspberries.
Add 1/3 of the custard.
Start again with the jammy cake slices - and repeat the whole process two more times.
Cover with plastic and pop in the 'fridge for at least two hours.
No more than two hours before you are going to serve the trifle, cover the top with whipped cream.
If you have raspberries left over, place them on the top of the trifle.
**I made the candied cherries using some sour cherry jam I made last summer than never quite jelled. I just cooked them down forever until all the liquid was gone, then carefully plucked them apart onto parchment paper to dry a bit. The recipe/idea from A Perfect Scoop - an indispensible ice cream cookbook by David Lebovitz. It's such a treasure, I suggest you put it on your wish list right away!)

Chill the trifle well and serve cold.

Merry Christmas from my kitchen to yours.

Christmas Eve appetizers gravlax, dill mustard, marcona almonds, kalamata olives,
Stoneyman Gourmet Farmer Hillandale Tomme. jack rose cocktails.

I Scream. You Scream. Ice Cream.

It’s been several days since I posted anything. Each day, I would think to myself – “this would make a good blog entry,” snap a couple of photos and then be unable to complete the task.

In short order, here are some highlights, including my negative thinking….:

Returning to my boarding school 35 years later for a small, but satisfying, reunion with dear friends. (really, who wants to hear about that – and what does it have to do with your garden?)

My sputtering artichoke plant and how it’s risen like Lazarus. (there is nothing more to say)

Amazing pizza with baby arugula from the garden. (OMG it was so delicious and I seem to have finally learned how to get the pizza from peel to stone – gotta love parchment paper – but the recipe is the same as focaccia, so nothing new to add)

Our search for, and possible location of, Our Dream House. The placing of an offer, the interminable wait to hear if the offer is accepted. (way too soon to post – no real information yet.)

Now, it’s Memorial Day weekend, and finally I have something to write about. Ice Cream.

For the last few days, friends from Florida have been staying with us while visiting their son, who has taken up residence in the Capitol City. These are the perfect houseguests. They are able to find their way around the kitchen should they need a glass of water; they are fearless about public transportation; have plans to visit, experience, and explore without the need for us to go with them (not that we don’t often enjoy the touring with guests, but our life is a little busy right now, so this worked out perfectly); and, finally, they love to cook and eat!

For their last evening in town, we planned an Indian feast. While I knew I could count on help with the cooking, I wanted to plan a dessert that would be memorable and appropriate - and entirely made in advance.

What else? Ice Cream!

The farmer’s markets are full of perfumed, intoxicating, ripe strawberries, so I knew one flavor had to be strawberry. And as I have a particular weakness for coffee ice cream, that was to be the second flavor.

Ice cream is an easy recipe. It’s milk, cream and some egg yolks. And then add in whatever flavors you like. The fun is in the riff. Butterscotch with smoky single malt. Thyme with lemon and pistachio. Rocky road with homemade marshmallow. The possibilities are endless and only limited by imagination.

I steeped the hot milk and cream with crushed coffee beans and a scraped vanilla bean, strained it, whipped it into egg yolks with a little sugar. Put it back on the flame and cooked it slowly until I had a nice thick custard. I stirred in a dark caramel I had going in another pot, then chilled the mix for a day before I froze it. I think the flavor intensifies if you allow it to sit for at least a few hours, if not a day or two, before freezing.

For the strawberries, I decided mint would be a nice counterpoint – I wanted that cool, crisp mint as an accent – something that would taste like good hard candy. (Unfortunately, I had only a big bunch of spearmint from the market. Peppermint would have been much better.) So, again, I steeped the milk and cream with mint, then stirred in a pureed jar of strawberry/mint jam I had made in February.

I really wanted a ribbon of caramel. Or a ribbon of strawberry. I haven’t figured out how to do that yet – more experimentation is definitely in order.

The following day I froze both custards in my ice cream maker, then popped them in the freezer to await the unveiling. We had “make-your-own-sundae” bar with maraschino cherries and bittersweet chocolate sauce. There were some bananas and some cream that could be whipped up, but we were all so stuffed from biryani and tikka masala and grilled flatbreads with nigella seed, I limited the ice cream bar offerings. The cherries really were a silly addition, but almost everyone took part. Next time, I’ll open the jar of brandied sour cherries made last summer as that would have been even more amazing.

In fact, those sour cherries might be a really nice addition to almond ice cream. And how about caramel ice cream with salted peanuts and a ribbon of fudge? Or peaches in cinnamon ice cream?

I took photos of the steeping milk/cream/coffee mix, the caramel, and (at the top) my set up ready to make the custard. I expect we'll be screaming for ice cream all summer.

Basic Ice Cream Base

1.5 c whole milk
1.5 c heavy cream
4-5 egg yolks
3/4-1.5 c sugar (depending on what you are adding - when I added jam, I cut way back on the sugar)

Flavor milk and cream: For coffee, I crushed 1/4 c of coffee beans. For the mint, I added about six stalks of mint. Heat the milk & cream to just below boiling point. Cover and steep for about an hour. Strain.

Beat egg yolks with sugar until lightened. Dribble milk mixture slowly into eggs while whisking to combine well.

Put back in a saucepan and stir with a wooden spoon while gently heating to 170•, or until the custard coats the back of the spoon and a line drawn through the custard on the spoon remains.

Remove from the flame, stir in any other additions (this is when I added the caramel, and when I added the pureed jam). Let this mixture develop in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.

Freeze per the instructions on your ice cream maker.

Happy Summer!