Strawberry and rhubarb trifle

Yes, I am still wading my way through all the rhubarb in my garden. I might as well rename the blog "what do you make of my rhubarb?"

In my effort to find more ways to use rhubarb I stumbled across a raspberry and rhubarb trifle recipe online by Phil Vickery. Having never tried rhubarb in a trifle before I was suitably intrigued and decided to make it for a little family gathering to celebrate my first wedding anniversary with the Man. If anniversary trifle isn't a thing then I'm totally making it a thing.

I made some tweaks to the recipe according to taste and also what I had in the kitchen. The most obvious swap was strawberry instead of raspberry as I had two packets of strawberry jelly and two tins of strawberries in syrup in the cupboard left over from Christmas (as trifle is a Christmas necessity) so it made sense to use them.

My only other significant change was using less sugar in the stewed rhubarb and omitting the vanilla as I prefer a more tart flavour. I think the original quantities would be far too sweet as mine was sweet enough. I guess it'll vary depending on your rhubarb though.

Although not necessarily a change, I also didn't follow the recipe for the custard. I used the same ingredients but measured by eye and went by taste. It was roughly the same quantity.

Usually for trifle I make a plain Victoria sponge, however I decided to go for a Swiss roll like the Phil Vickery recipe. I used my trusty Mary Berry recipe from her "Baking Bible", once again swapping the raspberry for strawberry jam. It's been a few years since I last made a Swiss roll (9 years ago, apparently?!) so that was a fun change.

The resulting trifle was fantastic! The lemon in the rhubarb gave a lovely zingy flavour in contrast to the sweeter strawberry flavour and Swiss roll. 

Everybody thought this trifle was immensely tasty. I have to admit, the rhubarb in our garden is the nicest rhubarb I've ever encountered; it is so red and sweet. This trifle is definitely one to add to the rhubarb repertoire.

Strawberry and rhubarb trifle

Recipe based on Phil Vickery's mum's trifle

X1 Swiss roll filled with strawberry jam. I used this Mary Berry recipe but without lemon. Same method but I used the following quantities in a larger tin measuring 33 x 23cm:

4 large eggs

100g caster sugar 

100g self raising flour

At least 4 spoonfuls of jam for the filling.

X2 135g packet strawberry jelly, made according to instructions. Admittedly I didn't end up using all the jelly, but I felt it needed more than one packet.

X2 tins of strawberries in syrup (drain the syrup) or fresh, chopped strawberries

Stewed rhubarb:

350g rhubarb, chopped into small chunks

Juice of 1 large lemon

100g sugar

Approx. 1 pint of custard, fresh/homemade, shop bought or made up with Bird's custard powder.

300ml double cream, lightly whipped.

Method: 

Make the Swiss roll, cut it into slices, then cut each slice in half. Place into the bottom of the trifle bowl and around the sides. Layer the fresh, chopped or drained, tinned strawberries into the centre.

Make up the jelly according to instructions. Top tip: if using tinned strawberries, use the fruit syrup for your jelly. Add enough boiling water to melt the jelly blocks then top up the rest of the liquid with the fruit syrup.

Once cool, pour the jelly into the trifle bowl until it fully covers the sponge and fruit. Put in the fridge to set, ideally overnight.

Put all ingredients for the stewed rhubarb in a pan and simmer over a low heat until the rhubarb has softened. Set aside to cool. Once cool, add on top of the set jelly.

Make up the custard, either using the powdered variety, make from scratch or buy ready made. If you're making it though, it's best to make it on the thick side to give it a firmer set. Let the custard cool before adding to the trifle, on top of the rhubarb layer.

Lightly whip the double cream and add as a final layer on top of the trifle. Re-chill and serve, with a flourish of sprinkles for decoration.

A Birthday trifle cake

Last week was my eldest brother's birthday. He is the family's chief trifle eater, known for eating left over Christmas trifle for his breakfast on Boxing Day. No birthday or Christmas is complete in his mind without a trifle, so when I saw the Caked Crusader's trifle cake at the beginning of this month I immediately knew this would be the perfect birthday cake for him.

I can't decide what was best about it, other than it is both a cake AND a trifle! Its wobbly appearance was pretty spectacular. I think all cakes should wobble from now on. My nephews definitely appreciated the cake's wobble-factor too.

The cake cut really well, had all the textures and flavours of a trifle, and looked beautiful. The colours and layers make it a really attractive celebration cake. Needless to say this cake disappeared very quickly. I can easily see this becoming a family favourite. Thank you so much Caked Crusader for a fantastic recipe!

Notes on the recipe:

I fully admit to not taking 2 days to make this cake. I started the evening before and finished the following day, so I cut a couple of corners in terms of refrigeration time. It worked fine, but it's probably better to follow the Caked Crusader's time scale!

My cake took longer than 30 minutes to cook, nearly double the time, so I put a layer of greaseproof paper over the top of the cake to stop it from burning and to allow the inside to cook for longer.

I added more powder and sugar to my custard as I like mine to resemble and taste like Ambrosia custard :)

For the jelly I used just enough boiling water to completely melt the block then made up the rest of the pint with reserved juice from the tinned strawberries/raspberries ( as I feel it makes for a tastier jelly).

As you may have noticed, I've decided to start putting my weblink on my photographs. Although I can see how fun, addictive and useful websites such as Pinterest can be, and I'm flattered that people enjoy my photography, but it does bother me when I find my photographs on there without any reference or link back to me. It would take far too long to go through all my previous photographs but I think this is something I'm going to do from now on, even though I find it difficult to include text which is visible but hopefully not detracting from the photograph. Does anyone else feel uneasy about the whole Pinterest/copyright issue?

Pudding glorious pudding!

At Christmas my family usually makes sticky toffee pudding and trifle (we're greedy). Some people prefer the one pudding over the other so it keeps everybody happy. I eat both though (told you, GREEDY!) Occasionally we shake it up some years and make a Christmas pudding instead, but usually we find it a bit heavy and rich on the stomach after a rich dinner.

Words cannot describe how amazing homemade sticky toffee pudding is. I've tried a few in different restaurants but I think ours has the edge. The toffee sauce tastes sooo good.

Despite burning the sponges for the trifle (oops!) it tastes great too. I had some for lunch today.

I thought I'd include the recipe for the sticky toffee puddings in this post. It's definitely a recipe worth sharing, everybody should try this! Although please don't blame me if you gain an extra few pounds because of it.

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Recipe from a family friend. Sorry all the measurements are in ounces. They can be converted easily in an online weight converter though.

For the date sponge

4oz marg.

4oz caster sugar

2 eggs (mine were large)

8 oz chopped dates

80z self raising flour

1 tsp bicarbonate soda

1/2 pint boiling water

Chop the dates into a bowl then add the bicarbonate soda and boiling water. I then left it to sit for 20-30 mins. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and line a 30 x 23cm (12 x 9 inch) traybake tin. Cream the marg and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and flour, then the date mixture. Mix until combined and pour into the tin. Bake on the middle shelf for approx. 20mins or until well risen/firm to touch.

For the toffee sauce

8oz butter

8oz dark brown soft sugar

1/2 pt double cream

Melt the butter and sugar together and add the cream (although my mum says you can throw it all together). Gently boil together for a few minutes then try not to drink it all before the traybake is ready!

Eoin's Battenberg Birthday

It takes a lot of courage for a man to request a partially pink cake for his Birthday. I was truly impressed and more than delighted to bake one. I've never made a battenberg cake before so I was really pleased with how it turned out. It was fun and not too complicated to make either. I doubled my go-to sponge recipe, making one half pink, and baked it in an oblong tin using a strip of cereal box as a divider. Cut the cake sections in half, reassemble, stick together with jam and roll it up in marzipan - hey presto you've got yourself a battenberg!

The battenberg train hurtling towards the tunnel. Choo choo!

Like I said in the previous post, no Thomson birthday is complete without trifle. There was left over cake from making the battenberg so Eoin ended up with a beast of a trifle.

Why yes, we always blow our birthday candles out on the livingroom mantlepiece. Don't really know why it ended up there, lack of tables perhaps?

Isn't it pretty!

Banana and chocolate layer cake and trifle

I'm a lean, mean, baking machine! It's my brother Andrew's birthday tomorrow so I decided to use the Hummingbird cupcake recipe to make a massive birthday cake. Admittedly it's not the smoothest icing job, but it still looks pretty spectacular. I like the rustic look and cannot wait to sample a piece tomorrow.

Although the recipe didn't come from the new Hummingbird book, I felt the title was appropriate. It really has been a cake day.

Andrew also requested a trifle (in our family you can't have a birthday without a trifle) so that's what I'm working on at the moment. I'm currently waiting for the jelly to set. It'll be tomorrow before I upload photos of that. I only needed one sponge for the trifle, so I added chopped apples and a bit of cinnamon to the rest of the batter to make some more buns similar to the ones I made last night. I like the dinky spotty cases.

Although I can't upload photos of the trifle tonight, I can upload a photo of the trifle I made at Christmas last year. It even had sponge fingers up the sides. What a beauty!

1.45AM update: TA-DAH! I thought I might as well stay up and finish the trifle. Perhaps not as impressive as the Christmas trifle, but it still looks good.