A Wintery-Spring Flavor Combination
As we find ourselves still in the dead of winter, spring feels far away. However, we know that time flies and colorful flowers and green grass will be here before you know it! One of our favorite ways to celebrate spring is to incorporate fresh fruit into our baked goods and recipes. We are especially excited to use lots of berries in our recipes this year. But since it’s also still chilly, this calls for a bit of heartiness and richness as well, in the form of chocolate. So, we would call this recipe a lovely celebration of hoping for spring in the chill of winter. Perhaps a very poetic take on a recipe for a delicious dessert, but I hope it doesn’t sound too far-fetched!
Today’s Recipe
Today’s recipe is for a chocolate and raspberry trifle, which I don’t think we can argue is Scandinavian at heart. However, we spent a lot of our childhood summers in Denmark picking raspberries with our morfar (grandfather). So, for us, raspberries remind us of sweet summers in rainy but beautiful Nykøbing Sjælland. In this recipe, they combine with luscious chocolate kagecreme and crunchy vanilla cookies to create a beautiful and idyllic dessert. The freshly whipped cream adds a light element to the dessert, and we don’t like to sweeten it, as the other ingredients are sweet enough! Feel free to make a larger version of this in a large dish for an impressive centerpiece, but we also like making individual portions for everyone. There is something so nice about having your own little trifle or parfait!
Making a Trifle
I know that we always say recipes are simple, but this truly is one of the most simple desserts you can find. If you are dying to make something entirely homemade, this is the recipe for you. If you are in a hurry and don’t want to make everything from scratch, this is also the recipe for you! How can that be? Well, we make our vanilla cookies, chocolate pastry cream, raspberry sauce, and whipped cream from scratch, but you can just as easily use storebought. Buy some crispy cookies, chocolate custard, raspberry jam, and pre-whipped cream and you can create this dessert in a heartbeat! But if you are interested, below you can find links to instructions for homemade versions of all aspects of this trifle. We hope you enjoy – leave a comment below if you try it out!
Trifli med hindbær og chokolade (Chocolate and Raspberry Trifle)
Ingredients
- 1/2 portion chokolade kagecreme (chocolate pastry cream) *we usually just make the whole portion of this recipe, but you will only need about half with the ratios we have provided – feel free to add more pastry cream to your taste!
- 28-30 fresh raspberries
- 8-10 vanilla cookies *you can either make these homemade, or use a cookie such as vanilla wafers, or digestive biscuits, or even butter cookies!
- 118 (1/2 cup) milliliters heavy whipping cream *for sweeter cream, add an additional 2 tsp sugar and a splash of vanilla extract when whipping.
- Chocolate shavings for decor
Raspberry Sauce (can be replaced with raspberry jam with a little bit of water added to make it runnier)
- 170 (~1.5 cups; 6 oz; 1 clamshell) grams fresh or frozen raspberries
- Squeeze of lemon juice
- 50 (1/4 cup) grams sugar
Instructions
- Prepare chocolate pastry cream up to one day ahead of time; it will need at least an hour in the fridge to cool down. You can also make storebought chocolate pudding here to make it even easier!
- Prepare vanilla cookies with enough time to let them cool down (about 1 hour before assembly!) Skip this step if using storebought cookies.
- Prepare raspberry sauce by combining fresh or frozen raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a small saucepan. Cook over medium to low heat until the raspberries break apart, about 5-10 minutes; it doesn't need to be very thick! Let cool for about 30 minutes in the fridge.
- Whip the cream until it reaches stiff peaks (you can add 2 tsp sugar and a splash of vanilla extract for additional flavor!)
- To begin assembly, you will need two medium sized glasses (we used tulip beer glasses for this, which do hold a pint of liquid; you can also use 4 smaller glasses or one large serving dish, but the amounts listed below are for 2 medium sized glasses! Feel free to adjust accordingly!)
- Add 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate pastry cream.
- Crumble 3 vanilla cookies on top of the pastry cream.
- Layer 2 tsp of raspberry sauce on top of the cookies.
- Arrange 8-9 raspberries around the edge of the glass.
- Add about 2 tbsp of the heavy whipping cream.
- Crumble 2 cookies on top of the cream.
- Add 2-3 tablespoons of chocolate pastry cream.
- Layer 2 tsp of raspberry sauce on top.
- Add another 5 fresh raspberries on top. We added a thin layer of whipped cream below, but this is optional!
- Pipe about 2-3 tbsp of whipped cream on top using a star nozzle (this is optional, you can just spoon the cream on top as well!)
- Optional: shave chocolate on top for additional decoration.
- Repeat the layering process with the second glass – you can make this dessert ahead of time and keep in the fridge for a few hours before serving! Enjoy!
