Blackcurrant Trifle

Those of you who have been following my blog for a while will know that fruit picking is one of my favourite summer time pastimes (yes, my life really is that exciting!). This year the weather was so terrible there wasn’t a lot of fruit to be picked but we did manage to go a few times, and when we did, tended to get a bit overexcited by the bounty available. On one trip, beautifully described by my friend Abby, the only fruit available in any quantity was blackcurrants. I love blackcurrant jam (luckily) but I was particularly pleased because I had recently found a delicious sounding recipe by Nigel Slater for Blackcurrant Trifle.

So without the right ingredients at the time to make the trifle, and pots and pots of jam to make, I put several 475g bags of blackcurrants into the freezer. And have been trying to make it ever since.

Finally at Christmas I had the ingredients for the trifle, along with enough people to eat it, in the house at the same time. It is a very simple recipe and perfect as a Christmas Trifle.

Picking blackcurrants

Ingredients

475g blackcurrants

4 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons caster sugar

350g cake

One large egg, separated

2 tablespoons caster sugar

250g mascarpone

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

250ml double cream

Method

Put the blackcurrants into a pan with the water and sugar and let them simmer for 7-10 minutes.

Break the sponge up into small pieces and push it down into the base of a trifle dish. Pour the blackcurrant mixture over the sponge and leave it to soak up the juice and cool down.

Beat the egg yolk and sugar together and then add the mascarpone and vanilla. Mix well. In separate bowls whip the cream into soft folds and the egg white until almost stiff. Then add them, one at a time, to the mascarpone mixture and fold in lightly. Spoon the mascarpone cream over the cooled blackcurrants and cake.

Refrigerate for at least an hour before serving.

The recipe calls for vanilla sponge cake but I happened to have chocolate sponge in the freezer, leftover bits from levelling off cakes and cupcakes so I used that. It was perfect as blackcurrants and chocolate go together beautifully. I don’t see why you couldn’t use any type of soft fruit for this trifle and I will be testing out my theory next fruit picking season!

I also imagine it tastes just as good, if not better, on the second day but sadly it didn’t make it to a second day…

In the meantime I have another couple of bags of blackcurrants to use up before next summer so I will be trying it with vanilla sponge next time,  just for research purposes, of course.

And thank you to my brother for the photos for this post – if you haven’t checked out his photos on Flickr yet, why not?!

Categories: Baking, Cakes, Desserts, Fruit, Fruit picking, Lifestyle

Tags: baking, cake, chocolate, Christmas, cream, dessert, fruit, fruit picking, mascarpone, Nigel Slater, parties, recipe, seasonal cooking, sponge, trifle, vanilla