This week's Baked Sunday Mornings recipe is a big bowl of trifle. More specifically, a Chai Spice Trifle with Mixed Berries that includes layers of buttery pound cake soaked with rum syrup, layered with with raspberries, blackberries, chai pastry cream, and vanilla whipped cream.
I made the pastry cream a day ahead to give it enough time to set up. You heat milk and sugar to boiling; add a tempered mixture of egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and chai spices (cinnamon, cardamon, ground ginger, white pepper, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves); boil the mixture briefly and put it through a sieve; and add cubed butter, rum, heavy cream, and vanilla. You chill the pastry cream overnight until it's firm. I also baked the pound cake (same recipe as the Buttery Pound Cake with Salty Caramel Glaze, but without the glaze) a day ahead of time.
Once you have the pastry cream and pound cake ready, it's easy to assemble the trifle. I cut the pound cake into thin slices (I baked it into a 10-inch by 5-inch pan, so the cake was shorter than it would have been if I had used a 8.5-inch by 4.5-inch pan as specified in the recipe) and put a layer of cake in the bottom of a trifle dish. I brushed the cake with rum-flavored simple syrup, following with layers of raspberries and blackberries, chai pastry cream, and vanilla whipped cream. Then I repeated layering sequence twice ending with whipped cream on top. Because I was taking the trifle into the office, I left it in the fridge overnight.
This trifle is massive. The recipe says it provides 24 large servings and I think that's conservative. The chai pastry cream was the creamy tan color of chai tea, so the distinct layers of the trifle were clearly visible through the bowl, and the layer structure was nicely preserved even after scooping out the trifle into individual servings.
I thought this trifle was okay. The recipe advises you to be generous with the rum soaking syrup because the cake is supposed to be soft. The soggy cake is what I found to be the least appealing part of the dessert. I'm not sure if it was the soft texture or the flavor of rum that I found distasteful. Maybe both. When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes serve Sara Lee poundcake -- the kind that came frozen -- with strawberries and whipped cream (either Reddi-Whip or Cool Whip). I loved it. So I'm a fan of the poundcake + fruit + whipped cream combo. But I think this trifle just had too much pastry cream and whipped cream and not enough cake. Or something. It's difficult to me to put my finger on why I found it underwhelming.
But the following day my husband and I enjoyed the two slices of pound cake that were leftover after making the trifle. I honestly enjoyed the plain pound cake more.
Recipe: "Chai Spice Trifle with Mixed Berries" from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Buttery Pound Cake with Salty Caramel Glaze," April 26, 2015.
I made the pastry cream a day ahead to give it enough time to set up. You heat milk and sugar to boiling; add a tempered mixture of egg yolks, sugar, cornstarch, and chai spices (cinnamon, cardamon, ground ginger, white pepper, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves); boil the mixture briefly and put it through a sieve; and add cubed butter, rum, heavy cream, and vanilla. You chill the pastry cream overnight until it's firm. I also baked the pound cake (same recipe as the Buttery Pound Cake with Salty Caramel Glaze, but without the glaze) a day ahead of time.
Once you have the pastry cream and pound cake ready, it's easy to assemble the trifle. I cut the pound cake into thin slices (I baked it into a 10-inch by 5-inch pan, so the cake was shorter than it would have been if I had used a 8.5-inch by 4.5-inch pan as specified in the recipe) and put a layer of cake in the bottom of a trifle dish. I brushed the cake with rum-flavored simple syrup, following with layers of raspberries and blackberries, chai pastry cream, and vanilla whipped cream. Then I repeated layering sequence twice ending with whipped cream on top. Because I was taking the trifle into the office, I left it in the fridge overnight.
I thought this trifle was okay. The recipe advises you to be generous with the rum soaking syrup because the cake is supposed to be soft. The soggy cake is what I found to be the least appealing part of the dessert. I'm not sure if it was the soft texture or the flavor of rum that I found distasteful. Maybe both. When I was a kid, my mother would sometimes serve Sara Lee poundcake -- the kind that came frozen -- with strawberries and whipped cream (either Reddi-Whip or Cool Whip). I loved it. So I'm a fan of the poundcake + fruit + whipped cream combo. But I think this trifle just had too much pastry cream and whipped cream and not enough cake. Or something. It's difficult to me to put my finger on why I found it underwhelming.
But the following day my husband and I enjoyed the two slices of pound cake that were leftover after making the trifle. I honestly enjoyed the plain pound cake more.
Recipe: "Chai Spice Trifle with Mixed Berries" from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, recipe available here at Baked Sunday Mornings.
Previous Post: "Baked Sunday Mornings: Buttery Pound Cake with Salty Caramel Glaze," April 26, 2015.
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