Tiramisu Trifle

I had a Christmas party yesterday and made a lot of festive food for the table which I will be blogging about throughout the week. Every party needs a dessert centrepiece and this year I decided to make a trifle. It was mainly inspired by the Waitrose Christmas Dessert Campaign. Their research shows that the top 5 desserts that people enjoy as a tradition in households at Christmas are the following:

• Christmas Pudding
• Christmas Cake
• Mince Pie
• Chocolate Yule Log
• Trifle

Which one is your favourite and what are you making this year? Personally I'm not a fan of the first 3 so my plan was to make either a chocolate yule log or a trifle. I'm planning to make a yule log for Christmas day so I started thinking about how to put a twist on the traditional trifle. Italian cuisine is ony of my favourite cuisines and if I eat at an Italian restaurant I will almost certainly order tiramisu for dessert. Hence my tiramisu trifle. Waitrose kindly sent me a gift box which included a gift voucher to purchase the ingredients for this recipe. 

This trifle is made with pears poached in marsala wine and mulled wine spices, chocolate panettone soaked in marsala wine, traditional custard and Baileys infused cream. This is topped with Christmas sprinkles from Waitrose. I debated about making a coffee jelly but sadly ran out of time. The trifle was absolutely delicious and really was the star of the day. It's quite boozy but not overly so and anyway it just isn't Christmas with a tipple of alcohol in your dessert! 

I'm sending this to Baking With Spirit hosted by Janine from Cake of the Week. The theme this month is Christmas and this trifle definitely says Christmas!

 Baileys, Marsala wine, Chocolate panettone, double cream, custard, pears, mulled wine spices 

 I've never tried a chocolate panettone - I have some leftover to make panettone bread and butter pudding - look out for the recipe 

 waitrose sells mulled wine wpice packs which contains everything you need to make your own mulled wine

 pour about 3/4 bottle of marsala wine and 100g caster sugar into a pan. Add the mulled wine spices.

 Peel the pears and cut the bottom of so that it can stand upright.  Place the pears in the mixture on a low to medium heat. Cover and allow to cook, turning the pears ocassionally.  Finally stand them up so that the whole pear is infused with the wine and spices. 

 Slice each pear in half and layer the pears on the outside of the dish

 they look really pretty from the outside

 add chocolate panetoone and fill the gaps with more panettone

 pour the rest of the marsala wine on top of the panettone and leave to soak 

 add a layer of vanilla custard - I love how it fills the gaps between the pears 

finish with a layer of Baileys infused cream just because it's not Christmas without Baileys! 

 with Christmas sprinkles. Looks good on the festive food table

 Here's what the rest of the table looks like. The Christmas banner is from Waitrose

Disclaimer: I was sent a gift voucher from Waitrose to buy ingredients for this recipe along with the Christmas decoration and Christmas sprinkles. All opinions expressed are my own. 

Carrot, Ginger and Rum Spiced Cake

When I think of Bonfire Night treats, I immediately think of toffee apples or a variation of toffee apple desserts. Something sticky with caramel and something sweet. This year I've made something a little different but still perfect for this time of the year. I had some leftover crystallised ginger from making my Crystallised Ginger and Beer Cake so I started to think about what else would go well with ginger. I had a root round my cupboard and my fridge and they provided the inspiration for this recipe. I based it on my favourite carrot cake recipe with a few amendments. I found some rum at the back of the cupboard and decided to soak the dried fruits in rum overnight. I also dug out my tropical cake tin as the rum and dried fruits felt tropical. 

The combination of ginger, carrot, dried fruits, rum and spices was heavenly. The flavours worked really well together and there's a bit of a kick to the cake. The ginger was the predominant flavour and every so often you get a burst of fruit with a hit of rum. I used my speculaas spice mix which really added a depth of flavour to this cake. The spices smelt amazing and really complemented the ginger. 

The cake was so good I made it again when I needed some 'thank you' cakes. I've been having a nightmare with Ikea delivery so I had to rely on my friend's parents to house sit. I also needed a 'thank you' cake for a colleague who very kindly carved a gorgeous cat pumpkin for me for Halloween. Plus I gave some to my neighbours who we asked to put out our bins and keep an eye on the house whilst we were away. I baked them in mini loaves this time which are ideal for gifts and they were very well received. 

 The cat pumpkin carving

I actually baked these cakes just before November so I'm really pleased that I can enter them to a number of blog challenges this month. 

Tea Time Treats hosted by Jane from The Hedge Combers and Karen from Lavender and Lovage. The theme this month is Bonfire Night. 

Treat Petite hosted by Stuart from Cakeyboi and Kat from the Baking Explorer. The theme this month is Thank You and as I mentioned earlier these were made to thank various people for their kind deeds. It's very fortuitous that Stuart picked this theme for November!

Biscuit Barrel hosted by Laura from I'd Much Rather Bake Than... The theme for this month is Winter Warmers and this ginger, rum and spiced cake will definitely warm you up!

Baking with Spirit hosted by Janine from Cake of the Week. I rarely get to enter this challenge so I'm really pleased that this fits in November's challenge which is warming and alcoholic. This cake definitely fits the bill! 

Credit Crunch Munch hosted by Alida from My Little Italian Kitchen on behalf of Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla from Fab Food 4 All. This recipe used up leftover crystallised ginger, mixed dried fruit and the end of a bottle of rum. 

Extra Veg hosted by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours and Michelle from Utterly Scrummy. The carrots here are an extra portion of veg and it's well hidden in this cake.

Love Cake hosted by Ness from Jibber Jabber. The theme this month is 'In with a Bang' and this cake definitely fits the bill with the spices, ginger and rum!

Cook Blog Share hosted by Lucy from Supergolden Bakes.

 adding eggs and oil to the flour mixture

 the fruits plumped up nicely after being soaked in rum overnight 

 adding grated carrots, chopped crystallised ginger and rum soaked fruits 

  

 Add a sprinkling of icing sugar for definition and wow factor

 You can see the bit of ginger, carrot and fruits 

 Mini loaves baked as a thank you

An original recipe by bakingaddict

175g self raising wholemeal flour

150g soft dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

100mls vegetable oil

2 eggs

250g carrots, peeled and grated

100g mixed dried fruit

60mls rum

100g crystallised ginger, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon gound nutmeg

1 teaspoon allspice 

OR 2 teaspoons Speculaas Spice

• Place the mixed dried fruit in a small bowl and soak in rum preferably overnight or longer if you can. 
• Preheat the oven to 170C
• In a large bowl, mix the wholemeal flour, bicarbonate of soda and spices.
• Add in the eggs and vegetable oil and mix well.
• Stir in the grated carrots, chopped crystallised ginger and rum soaked fruits. 
• Pour into a tin and bake for approximately 50-60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 
• The mini loaves will take about 30-35 minutes - check with a skewer at 25 minutes. 

Spiced Apple, Honey and Beer Cake

I'm sure you can tell by now that I love experimenting in the kitchen and creating new recipes when I can. This month's Baking with Spirit hosted by Janine from Cake of the Week has the theme of beer. I have a bottle of apple beer in my fridge from my last trip to Belgium so I got to thinking about making a cake with it and came up with this recipe. It's a vegan recipe with lots of spices, apple, honey and of course beer. The cake itself was quite moist and sticky and you can definitely smell and taste the beer! I'm not overly keen on this cake but I'm glad I tried it and I'm sure if I experimented with the recipe a bit more, I could come up with something much tastier! 

I'm also sending this to Made with love Mondays hosted by Javelin Warrior where the idea is to make something from scratch. 

 

And to simple and in season as apples are in season. Simple and in season was created by Ren from Fabulicious Food and guest hosted this month by Franglaiskitchen. 

 apple beer from Belgium and fresh Bramley apples 

 adding lots of spices! 

 adding the beer

 note to self - must chop apples into smaller pieces next time

 I decided to make mini loaves as they look so cute...

 ...especially with a ribbon around it! 

An original recipe by bakingaddict

Makes 11 mini loaves as shown. 

400g flour

175g honey

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground all spice

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

330ml apple beer

2 Bramley apples - peeled, cored and chopped

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• In a large jug, mix the beer and honey together.
• Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
• Pour in the beer and honey mixture and mix well.
• Finally stir in the chopped apples - you can also grate the apples if you want a finer texture. 
• Pour into mini loaf cases and bake for approximately 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. 

Painkiller Cupcakes with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

I celebrated my birthday a few days ago. It's nice to have someone else make the cake for a change and I had 2 delicious cakes - lemon drizzle and chocolate, both firm favourites of mine. Of course, I couldn't resist baking something myself hence these Painkiller Cupcakes. I initially planned on making pina colada cupcakes but came across these on Hazel's blog and decided that with a few tweaks, I could enter this to multiple blog challenges this month!  

A painkiller cocktail is made from dark rum, orange juice, pineapple juice, sweetened coconut cream and shaved ice, topped with nutmeg. It was originally invented at the Soggy Dollar Bar in the British Virgin Islands. I decided to make a coconut and pineapple cupcake filled with homemade orange curd topped with a white chocolate cream cheese frosting and a sprinkle of nutmeg on top. Unfortunately, the orange curd was a failure (should have stuck to my normal recipe for lemon curd) so I had to improvise slightly. The result was a really moist and fruity cupcake and the flavours worked well together. They were a real hit at work and even though I don't like coconut, I really enjoyed these cakes. 

I'm entering them to AlphaBakes which I co-host with Caroline from Caroline Makes. The letter for this month is "P".  You can use the letter in the name of the bake or as the main ingredient. It's a double whammy here with painkiller and pineapple. 

I'm also entering them to We Should Cocoa which is celebrating it's 2nd anniversary this month. Happy birthday WSC! Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog has chosen cocktail inspiration as the theme this month.  We should Cocoa is hosted on alternate months by Choclette and Chocolate Teapot. The idea is to make something with chocolate each month. WSC was the first blogging challenge I ever entered and I've not missed a month since then!

I'm also entering them to Calendar Cakes hosted by Laura from Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel from Dolly Bakes.  The theme this month is cupcakes as it's national cupcake week in September. 

I discovered a new blog challenge this monhth (thanks Caroline!) called Baking with Spirit. It's hosted by Janine from Cake of the Week who challenges us to bake or cook with alcohol each month. This month, she chose rum so these painkiller cupcakes are perfect. 

Finally, I'm entering them to Cupcake Tuesday hosted by Liz from Hoosier Homemade. 

 key ingredients - pineapple, coconut milk, rum flavouring and dessicated coconut

 adding pineapple and coconut to the batter 

 ready to go in the oven 

 how cute are these? 

 view from the top

For the cupcakes - makes 11 cupcakes of size shown 

120g flour
120g caster sugar
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
40g butter
120ml coconut milk
1 egg
30g dessicated coconut
1 teaspoon rum flavouring (or real rum) *
5 pineapple rings, chopped
5 tablespoons of homemade unset orange curd - you can either fill the cupcakes with proper orange curd or use the zest of 1 orange plus 1 tablespoon of orange juice

* I used rum flavouring as these were for work, didn't want to get everyone tipsy!

For the frosting

30g white chocolate, melted
100g cream cheese
50g butter
1 teaspoon orange water
250g icing sugar, sifted

For the decoration
Ground nutmeg to sprinkle
Cocktail umbrellas
Cherries

• Preheat the oven to 170C.
• Combine all the cake ingredients except for the pineapple and dessicated coconut in a large bowl. 
• Stir in the pineapple and dessicated coconut by hand. 
• Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
• Allow to cool completely before frosting.
• To make the frosting, melt the white chocolate in the microwave or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. 
• Beat together the cream cheese, butter, icing sugar and orange water until smooth. 
• Stir in the white chocolate and continue beating for a few minutes. 
• Pipe the frosting on the cupcake. 
• Sprinkle with ground nutmeg.
• Decorate with half a cherry on top and a cocktail umbrella.