Chocolate Raspberry Trifle

I hope upon seeing the title of this post you weren't expecting a large and glorious trifle, with layers upon layers of feather-light chocolate gemoise, thick creamy creme anglaise, and bright red raspberries. 'Cause mine is a little more rustic than the photo in the book.

August 7, 2011
Name of Cake: Late July Trifle
Occasion: HCB, and raspberry season
Constituents: moist chocolate genoise, creme anglaise, leftover raspberry coulis (in place of raspberry jam), and fresh raspberries. and raspberry whipped cream.

A normal-sized trifle feeds about 20 people, and since I wasn't feeling like rounding up 20 people I halved the recipe. The trouble with halving a trifle recipe is finding an appropriate receptacle for the thing. I chose a glass food storage container which was a little too wide and a little too short. So what I'm trying to say is my trifle has only three layers and the creme anglaise seeped all down between the cake and the side of the container. Oh well. So much for pretty trifle pictures!

Despite not looking so hot, the trifle tastes amazing!

This trifle involves lots of steps:

1. chop, melt, and cook dark chocolate for the genoise, let cool
   
2. make the 2 layers of genoise, let cool
   
3. make a sugar syrup for the genoise, let cool
   
4. make creme anglaise, let cool
   
5. remove the top crust and torte both genoise layers
   
6. spread raspberry jam, or in my case leftover raspberry coulis from the wedding on one side of the cakes

Then comes trifle assembly:

1. place cake layer jam side down in your trifle dish
   
2. syrup the other side of the cake in the dish
   
3. pour over some creme anglaise
   
4. scatter some raspberries

And lather, rinse, repeat.

Gosh, when written out like that it looks really easy! Even though there are a lot of steps, they are all easy steps. The hardest part was being patient with all these cooling down shenanigans. I distracted myself by making dinner. A good distraction, with enjoyable results (most of the time).

The assembled trifle gets covered airtight and left in the refrigerator overnight to sort itself out. I have become a firm believer in letting cakes get a good rest to sort themselves out.

check out the larger version of this shot; i got good detail on the raspberry!

After letting the trifle do its sorting, the raspberry whipped cream is made. Basically you whip up cream, sugar, and raspberry jam until you get a cute pink topping that makes the trifle look adorable. Here's my advice bakers: if you want your cake to look adorable frost it with pink tinted frosting.

I discovered that taking a photo of a serving of trifle is difficult, as the insides are scooped out and plated. This scooping action just smears the frosting and creme anglaise all over the place and makes your trifle photograph like a dead animal. Check it out:

bleaurgh

I tried again, and it came out marginally better:

At least its insides aren't spilling out like Skywalker's tauntaun

But at least you can see the layers. And never mind how it looks, just know that it tastes wonderful. Rose mentions in the header for this recipe that this dessert is deceptively light, making it suitable even after a heavy dinner. I agree that is deceptively light and very flavorful; the creamy vanilla creme anglaise, the tart strawberries, and the mellow chocolate genoise are a perfect combination. Although I agree with others who said the St Honore Trifle is the better of the two, don't skip this trifle when raspberries are in season!