Strawberries & Cream Trifle

Trifle is the ultimate shared dessert. Perfect for a potluck or family gathering.

I’ve always wanted a big beautiful trifle dish. It’s best to have a clear one so you can see all those lovely layers, and one with a nice base that’s not so detailed that it takes away from the dessert, and a dish that’s not too terribly big, since there’s only two of us in our home.

At long last, after years of it being on my gift wish list, I finally received the perfect dish.

So here it is! This trifle resembles strawberry shortcake, containing layers of white cake, fresh strawberries, strawberry jam, vanilla pastry cream and fresh whipped cream to top the whole thing off.

I’ve taken my best recipe for each component and put them all together to create this trifle. This makes enough for 1 large trifle dish with a bit of leftovers from each component.

 

White Cake (do the day before): Makes 3 x 6” Rounds (To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t matter what type of pan you bake this in because it’s going to get cut up into cubes.)

Ingredients:

• 298g white granulated sugar
• 283g cake flour
• 11g baking powder
• 7g salt
• 135ml milk
• 75g eggs
• 96g egg whites
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 170g soft unsalted butter

Procedure:

• Grease pans and line with parchment.
• Put the butter into mixer with a paddle attachment.
• Sift the dry ingredients together and whisk the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.
• Add the dry ingredients to the butter as well as half of the wet mixture. Mix for 3 minutes on medium speed.
• Add the remaining wet mixture in 2 additions, mixing for 3 minutes after each and scraping down the sides of the bowl.
• Portion and bake at 350°F until toothpick test is passed, about 45 minutes.
• Cool cakes slightly before removing pans. Once cooled completely, wrap and keep in fridge.

 

Vanilla Pastry Cream (make day of assembly, keep warm)

Ingredients:

• 500ml 35% cream
• 500ml milk
• 1 vanilla bean
• 4 whole eggs
• 226g white granulated sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 56g corn starch

Procedure:

• Combine cream, milk, vanilla bean (split and scraped), and half of the sugar in a pot and scald.
• Combine remaining sugar, salt and cornstarch and whisk.
• Add eggs to dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.
• Temper in the egg mixture with the hot milk and put back onto heat.
• Whisk constantly until the mixture comes to a boil. Continue mixing for 1 minute while bubbling before straining into a bowl.

 

Whipped Cream (make this component last, before assembling)

• 1 ½ cups 35% cream
• 2 tbsp icing sugar

Whip together until medium stiff peaks form.

 

Assembly

Components:

1. Cake (cut into bite size cubes)
2. Vanilla pastry cream
3. Whipped cream
4. Strawberries (two pints fresh, cut into pieces)
5. 1 cup homemade Strawberry Jam (store-bought is also acceptable! We don’t judge here.)

Here’s the layering process I did, but there are no rules as to how many layers you should have or in which order.

• cake cubes
• jam dollops
• fresh cut strawberries
• pastry cream
• cake cubes
• jam dollops
• fresh cut strawberries
• pastry cream
• cake cubes
• jam dollops
• fresh cut strawberries
• whipped cream

Chill overnight.

 

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