Luscious Desserts

Posted bybrooklynwellnessnzPosted inFestive, Recipes

A trio of sumptuous desserts, and links to more. Some, but not all, lower sugar but something in the line up should suit most eating plans. A lot of them have whipped cream, but if you want to replace with whipped coconut cream, here’s how.

Trifle

I used to think there were three kinds of people – those who love a jelly trifle, those who love a sherry trifle, and those who hate trifle of any kind. But these days, there are many more options to try, including vegan and lighter options. I’m firmly in the first camp. Grandma’s jelly trifle was much loved at all family parties, and my brother still makes it at Christmas.

I was surprised that I couldn’t find anything quite like it online, with no alcohol. A lot of recipes layer the jelly on its own, not soaked into the sponge. Or have both sherry and jelly. So I’m going to get nostalgic and write up Grandma’s recipe, as I remember it.

  • A slab of a standard sponge, bought from the supermarket (madeira cake would also work)
  • Berry jam
  • A red jelly (or if you have a massive sponge, you might need two)
  • Tinned fruit – usually fruit salad, but sometimes boysenberries
  • Edmonds custard, made up from the recipe on the box, a thick mix (nowadays you could buy it ready made, or follow the recipe in the Edmonds Sherry Trifle below)
  • Whipped cream (possibly with a little icing sugar in it)
  • Sliced strawberries or grated chocolate

Spread your sponge with a generous layer of jam. Pop it into the bowl and break it up roughly. Layer some drained tinned fruit on top. Make up your jelly and pour it over the top. There should be enough jelly that the sponge is completely soaked and maybe just a little excess, but not much. Once that’s set, top with your (cooled) custard, and a generous layer of whipped cream. Top with sliced strawberries, grated chocolate or both.

PS. 10 Dec 24 – Faye from our group made a jelly trifle for our Christmas party last night and I was delighted to discover it was just like one of Grandma’s. Her tip – Vary it by using different fruits and flavours of jelly. Tinned mandarins & an orange jelly. Sliced strawberries and a strawberry jelly. Or whatever combo you have on hand.

Sadly, I don’t have photos of either Faye’s trifle or my brother’s, so the photo below is of Jamie Oliver’s mum’s trifle, see recipe link further down.

More trifles

  • If you want to lower the sugar a little, use a low sugar jam and a sugar free jelly. If you’re gluten free, you might be able to find a GF sponge or might need to make your own. If you’re vegan, dairy or egg free, check out the next 2 recipes
  • For those who prefer a lighter dessert – Chia, granola & yoghurt trifle. For dairy free, use coconut yoghurt. For egg free, bake your own sponge or brioche base.
  • Vegan trifle – though you might not be able to get some of the ingredients in NZ
  • Edmonds Sherry Trifle – which offers the option of a fruit liqueur (now that I can get behind – Chambord, mmm…)
  • Jamie Oliver’s Mum’s Sherry trifle – which oddly also has jelly and it and offers the option of Weetbix instead of sponge. But if you ignore the Weetbix option and leave out the sherry, this is the closest to Grandma’s that I could find
  • Keto trifle – they’ve made the jelly separately, and chopped it up as a layer, but if you like trifle like my Grandma’s, it could easily be converted to her method. Or use the keto sponge described in any other trifle recipe.
  • Eton Mess trifle – with meringue and sherry steeped berries
  • Irish Cream trifle
  • Christmas pudding trifle – made with ginger wine or sherry
  • A few years ago, I developed a Triple Chocolate Raspberry trifle (pictured below) using my favourite chocolate mousse (recipe below that.)
  • And since then I’ve found a few others have had the same idea – most recent being this Easy Chocolate Trifle

Chocolate Mousse

This recipe, by Lois Daish, was originally published in The Listener decades ago, and has been a go-to favourite for a long time.

  • 120g (4 oz) dark chocolate, preferably 70% cocoa, though I have made it for my family with Whittakers 55% and that works fine too. If you choose a sugar free chocolate, see notes below*.
  • 4 eggs
  • Optional – 1-2 Tbs of your favourite liqueur (orange is especially good, but also experiment with butterscotch, Irish cream, hazelnut or whatever you fancy really)

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler, or find a bowl that will fit neatly over a pot. Make sure the bowl is completely dry. If any steam or liquid gets into the chocolate once it has started to melt, it will seize up into hard chunks that can’t be melted*. Break the chocolate into squares and put it in the bowl. Bring water to the boil in the pot, then remove from the heat and place the bowl over the pot. Leave for a few minutes, stirring occasionally with a dry spoon, until the chocolate melts.

Mean­while, separate the eggs, putting the yolks in a cup and the whites in a medium bowl. When the chocolate is melted, lift the bowl off the pot of water and beat in the egg yolks until smooth. Add the alcohol. Whisk the egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold in.

Spoon the mousse into 4-6 small bowls or fancy glasses, and refrigerate for at least an hour. Serves 4-6.

Serve with your choice of:

  • fresh berries or other fruit
  • whipped or runny cream
  • European style thick yoghurt

Variation – Creamy Mousse: After adding the egg whites, gently fold in ¾ cup of softly whipped cream.

* Recently, I have found some chocolate melts fine, but then lumps up a bit when you add your other ingredients. For a sugar free protein chocolate like Vitawerx, this will definitely happen, so try and find a different sugar free choc. Apart from that, this is a recent change which puzzles me a bit. Do a test run beforehand and see if this happens. When a recipe includes a significant amount of liquid, (eg when you make a chocolate sauce using equal quantities of cream and chocolate) you can put the chocolate and cream in the pot at the same time and heat them gently together without them seizing. So try adding just a little of your unwhipped cream to the chocolate before melting. You may need to whisk your mixture well before adding the whipped egg whites and cream. But if the worse comes to the worst, your family might not complain about the odd lump.

(picture from www.pixabay.com, not my mousse but similar)

More mousses

(picture from www.pixabay.com)

Dress up your Ice cream

Ice cream isn’t just for the kiddies. We can make it a bit more sophisticated, or turn it into a comfort food, by what we put on top.

  • It can be as easy as choosing a higher quality brand like Kapiti, and pouring a shot of Baileys, Kahlua or other liqueur over the top. If you don’t eat dairy or sugar, so haven’t bought ice cream for a while, it’s now possible to get dairy free or lower sugar options.
  • If you want to make your own ice cream, there are heaps of options. The first four links are for a standard diet – yes, still loaded with sugar and dairy, but at least you know there are no dodgy additives. Scroll past those if you want to see dairy free, or lower sugar options.
    • Basic ice cream – Just eggs, cream, castor sugar and choice of flavouring. Needs a machine
    • Philadelphia-style ice cream – No eggs, so simpler to prepare. It just contains cream, milk, sugar, vanilla and salt, though it can be adapted to make lots of other flavours. It’s easiest to make with an ice cream maker, and there is some discussion on different kinds. There’s a also a link to making ice cream without a machine.
    • Simplest ice cream – just cream, sweetened condensed milk and your choice of flavour, no machine needed.
    • Collection of 35 recipes – a variety of different flavours and levels of difficulty, some using a machine, some not
    • Instant “snow freeze” – If you like a soft serve ice cream, you can make some in just a few minutes as long as you have some fruit already frozen. Can be dairy free. Small amounts of natural sweeteners included, but those could be replaced with any sweetener of your choice. Eat immediately!
    • Low carb no churn vanilla – still heavy on dairy, but includes almond milk and low cal sweetener
    • Strawberry ice cream – keto, vegan, dairy free – uses coconut milk, stevia and strawberries. You will need glucomannan which can be bought online from places like Health Post or Pharmacy Direct.
    • Chocolate ice cream – coconut milk based, with avocado. Keto, vegan, dairy free.
    • 20 more keto ice creams – some are “no churn”, some are vegan, and some even include superfoods
  • Make affogato by pouring hot espresso over ice cream or gelato, with or without a liqueur.
  • If you’re keener on chocolate than coffee, here’s a hot fudge sauce made without refined sugar
  • … which reminds me of an old childhood favourite – make up some Edmonds custard, but add cocoa and a little extra sweetener to make a hot chocolate sauce, which doesn’t set hard, but instead melts the vanilla ice cream heaped into the bowl…

Anyway, back to the topic of more sophistication, with this recipe for a grown up topping for those who prefer alcohol free

Vanilla ice-cream with chai latte syrup

This easy-to-make topping is a simple way to turn a scoop of ice-cream into a delicious, grown-up dessert.

  • 3 Darjeeling tea bags
  • 1 stick cinnamon
  • 1 tsp cloves
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 4 cardamom pods
  • ½ cup caster sugar
  • ½ cup dark brown sugar
  • ½ cup brewed espresso coffee
  • vanilla ice-cream, to serve

Bring 1 cup of water to the boil in a small saucepan then add the tea bags, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves and cardamom pods and stand for 5 minutes to allow the tea to brew strongly. Remove the tea bags and squeeze as much liquid as possible back into the saucepan.

Add the sugars and coffee and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the sugar is dissolved and the liquid reduced to around ½ cup, about 5 minutes. Allow to cool completely and then strain to remove the spices. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours, then serve drizzled over good-quality vanilla ice-cream.

Tip: Simple syrup is a sugar syrup made from equal parts of sugar to liquid. A rich syrup is made with two parts sugar to one part liquid. Store syrups in the fridge and use them within a couple of months.

Other Desserts

  • Ambrosia – classic, easy-as Kiwi dessert with only four ingredients. But can also be tweaked by, for eg:
    ~ Replacing the yoghurt with coconut yoghurt
    ~ For completely dairy free, also replace the whipped cream with whipped coconut cream
    ~ Varying the berries
    ~ Using sugar free marshmallows to reduce the sugar
    ~ Add grated chocolate, or a broken up Flake, to the mix, or on top, for extra decadence
    ~ Lots of other variations in the comments
  • Rice pudding – Grandma also made us baked rice pudding, and this recipe looks just like hers. Sometimes for a bit of variety, she’d either make the sago version, or stir in some sultanas or raisins. You can also make it on the stovetop (though that will need more looking after). Here’s a vegan version using brown rice and soy milk, though I think coconut milk would be healthier and tastier.
  • German Chocolate Cheesecake – paleo, vegan, almost 100% raw. Plan to start this at least 2 days before you need to serve it, as the nuts need to be soaked.
  • Keto chocolate no bake cheesecake
  • Cacao and strawberry tart – a whole food recipe
  • No-bake apple tart – raw, whole food recipe
  • If you want to try a pie, and make your own pastry, here’s a recipe for puff pastry that only requires 15 mins hands on prep. Though there is a lot of chilling time required, so the first time, start looking at what you need to do a couple of days ahead. It can be used for a variety of sweet and savoury recipes.
  • If you prefer a shortcrust pastry, try this one.
  • Berry sponge pudding – made with coconut flour, so gluten and grain free
  • Pavlova – Here’s Chelsea Winter’s recipe, which is a little lower in sugar than other recipes online. If you want to make a sugar free version, read Chelsea’s helpful tips first, then try this keto recipe which gives helpful tips on which low carb sweeteners will and won’t work.
  • Nigella’s Forgotten pudding – like a flat marshmallowy pavlova made in a swiss roll tin. If you like the mallow and are not bothered about the crunch, this would be much easier and quicker, and can also be sliced up more easily.

Recipe posts compiled by Deb.
For more recipes, go to the Recipe Index page

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