Chocolate Raspberry Trifle

Hello? Is anyone out there? I’m usually on the tail end of the weekly posters for the heavenly cake bakers group, but it looks like I’m only the second one to post this week’s cake. I guess I’ll chalk it up to Memorial day festivities in the US, since the only other poster so far also lives outside the US, in Canberra. This week, we’re working on the Chocolate Raspberry Trifle, leaving only a handful of cakes from the sponge cake chapter unbaked. For me, they are White Gold Passion Génoise, Red Fruit Shortcake, and Catalan Salt Pinch cake, which I skipped the first time around. I decided to make this trifle in a casserole dish, for several reasons. The first is the most important: I don’t own a trifle dish (shock! horror!). The second reason is because I thought it would be a pretty convenient way to carry it to work.

Saturday afternoon, while Jay was cutting the rafters for our shed’s roof, I assembled the various components of this cake. I measured all my ingredients, made my syrup, melted/simmered the chocolate so that it could cool, made the crème anglaise so it could cool, etc. Once that was done, I realized there was still time to wait on the last load of laundry, and the rafters weren’t quite finished yet, so I baked the cake layer too. I halved the recipe, because going through nearly two dozen eggs for one cake just struck me as absurd (plus yadda yadda trifle dish…). So, here we sit. We have the crème anglaise, the raspberry preserves, the syrup, the cake layer, and the raspberries.

I left the cake to cool while I went outside to help with the shed. Later, just before supper, I came back in for assembly. First, split the cake layer(s) in half. Spread preserves on the bottom side of each layer, and syrup the tops. Of course, just spread the preserves on, then put the first layer into the pan, preserves side down, THEN add the syrup. I still made a mess of things, but I can only imagine what it would have been like if I’d tried to syrup it first. 😉 I also had to cut down my cake layers slightly to fit them in my dish. Spread about half of your reduced recipe of the crème anglaise on top.

Then add some raspberries, put in the other cake layer, syrup it, add the rest of the crème anglaise, and more raspberries.

The next step is the whipped cream with raspberry preserves, which is absolutely delicious. After piping an admittedly modest amount onto the cake, I took my leftover cake bits, after trimming the layers down to size, and added the cake bits in layers with the cream to a couple of small bowls for dessert. We can’t be wasteful! Besides, it’s trifle, that’s what it’s for. 😉

I popped the lid on the casserole dish and took the cake into work today, and like always, it disappeared quickly. It’s nice to have co-workers I can count on.

I thought this was a great combination of flavours, though the whole thing ended up just a touch soggy as far as my own personal texture preferences go. I’d almost say I could happily get away with leaving off the syrup entirely. I do have to admit to one blunder of my own that may have contributed to the texture — when I was adding the milk to the crème anglaise, I halved the 1/4 cup that gets mixed with cornstarch, but forgot to halve the remaining 3/4 cup. I did cook the custard just a little bit longer to get it to a good consistency, but this still could have been part of my problem. I’ll have to try again sometime. 🙂