Food blog eight - for Richard’s ‘official’ birthday bash

The finishing touches have been, or are being, deployed:

We have two iced cakes, Royal Icing with adornments, from my aunt. She has made the decorations herself, out of icing sugar, and one shows all the vegetables Richard grows. Hand-styled and hand-painted. Very detailed and stylish. What a clever aunty!

The second cake is decorated with an icing sugar paint palette, brushes and water pot. Yes he’s also an artist and it’s a skilful demonstration of cake decor.

Another aunty has decorated her pineapple cakes with pecan and cherries. Yummy.

My two carrot cakes (one gluten-free and sugar-free) and the moist ( g-f and s-f) chocolate cake from my last post - will be defrosting on Thursday night - ready for icing on Friday - then back into the fridge.

The sugary cake will likely have a buttercream frosting, decorated with miniature icing-sugar carrots. The healthier options will have a cream cheese frosting, flavoured with Madagascan vanilla essence and sweetener.

The drier chocolate cake is now crumbled and steeped in Amaretto - in two glass trifle dishes. It certainly isn’t dry now!

As we’ll have a four-year old with us over the weekend I’ve made a sweeter trifle for her and a boozy one for those who like that sort of thing. Neat Amaretto packs a punch so in both cases I diluted it with half-half water. That’s while, after a few taste tests, I could still stand. 

In trifle number one I cut the chocolate cake into small pieces and spread no-added-sugar raspberry jam over the rough cubes, a la Nigella. I steeped them in the Amaretto concoction for about four hours, it really was a dry cake, and made a compote. 

Into a small saucepan I put sliced, dried apricot, sliced dates, grated orange zest and sultanas. I barely covered the fruits with water and the pan was a little shy of half full. On medium heat I brought the pan to a slow boil and simmered the fruit for fifteen minutes. After the quarter hour the sultanas and apricots had ballooned and were truly succulent.  The sticky compote took a short while to cool down. I drained the excess Amaretto liquor from the steeped trifle base and made a sweet layer of compote over the jammy cake base. Then it was time for the custard.

The custard is made from

300ml whole milk
300ml double cream
6 egg yolks
3 tbsp caster sugar or 1 tbsp truvia
1 tbsp cornflour-non-gluten 

vanilla essence (to taste)

1 Put the milk, vanilla and cream into a thick-bottomed pan on a gentle heat. Stir while bringing it to just below a simmer without allow ing it to boil. In another bowl (or food processor) combine the egg yolks, sugar/ sweetener and cornflour. The egg mixture will need to be in a large bowl for the next stage. 

3. Pour the milk on to the yolk and sugar/sweetener mixture, stirring all the time. 

4. With the heat on medium-low pour the custard mixture back into the pan. Stirring slowly and continuously, cook until it coats the back of a wooden spoon – the longer you cook it, the thicker it will be. If it doesn't appear to be thickening after 10 minutes, you may have the heat slightly too low, but don't turn it up dramatically or you'll spoil it.

5.Allow the custard to cool before pouring it over the trifle base. Cover with cling film and chill in the fridge until you are ready to decorate the trifle with whipped cream and toasted almonds or berries. The custard will set overnight.

In the boozy version of the trifle I omitted the raspberry jam and used less compote which has a sweetening effect. I also made a chocolate custard rather than a vanilla flavoured one. It seemed more appropriate for a decadent, whoozy-boozy Amaretto confection.

How to make chocolate custard

Ingredients

• 450ml (3/4pt) whole milk

• 3tbsp cocoa powder

• 4tbsp caster sugar or 11/3 tbsp truvia

• 1tbsp gluten-free cornflour

• 2 large free range egg yolks

Method

1.Put aside 2 tbsp of the milk. Pour the rest into a medium-sized non-stick pan and heat it.

2.Sift the cocoa, sugar/sweetener and cornflour into a bowl. 

3.Add the yolks and the 2 tbsp milk. Stir to make a thick paste.

4.Stir hot milk into the egg mixture in the bowl, stirring all the time, then pour the mixture back into the pan and stir gently over a low heat until the custard thickens. 

5.Don’t let the mixture boil unless you want scrambled egg!

The chocolate custard shouldn’t need flavouring but a teaspoon of Amaretto - added once it’s cooled - might add an alcoholic richness. As with trifle one pour the custard over the boozy base and cover with cling film. Cool in the fridge - allowing the custard to set as before.

Decorating whipped cream topping is best done just before serving as colours bleed. Pomegranate adds a bright red gleam to the peaked cream but grated chocolate seems more in keeping with the boozy Amaretto-heavy trifle.

I wonder which one the four year old will choose this weekend?