This is not a traditional English trifle. There is no dense pound cake, crème anglaise, and whipped cream inside. My trifle is assembled from light chocolate génoise soaked in Grand Marnier syrup, freshly made cranberry sauce, chocolate pastry cream, and tangy cream cheese-sour cream mousse. The whipped cream is only a topping here.

If you haven’t decided what dessert to make for the New Year celebration, you might want to consider this trifle. It is absolutely delicious, it can be made well in advance and the whole prep can be stretched over several days, so you definitely wouldn’t exhaust yourself preparing it. If you don’t have a large trifle bowl, the dessert can be assembled in individual little bowls or brandy glasses. In this case, you will only need two layers of génoise to fill the glasses.

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There shouldn’t be any excuses for not baking this time of the year. Perhaps, it would be better to start a bit earlier and not a week before Christmas. But, as an old proverb goes – it’s still better later than never.

I think, I’m back.

I used to bake this Italian specialty in a round pan and give it whole as a gift to our Italian (and very appreciative) friends. But this year I’m making it different, baking it square, slicing into finger-like pieces and stuffing into multiple boxes along with other treats and cookies for many recipients. It saves me time, and saves them trouble to slice the panforte by themselves (surprisingly, but not everyone owns a good heavy sharp knife).

First panforte is quite hot and not too sweet due to the sour fruits I used (I liked this one most). The second one is milder and sweeter and will please more conservative taste. To distinguish one variety from another, I dusted the apricot panforte with icing sugar and left the prune panforte in its shiny beauty.

I want to emphasize a proper way of packaging these confections for gift-giving. The best would be to place each slice into an individual parchment cupcake liner (it will prevent them from sticking), or at least separate the rows with parchment strips. Do not put them directly onto decorative tissue paper. First of all, most of this paper is not food-safe. And second, the panforte will firmly stick to it.

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The cake is sort of a lighter version of classic pound cake. Ricotta cheese replaces half of the butter which results in no less delicious and outstandingly moist cake. Good quality cocoa, chopped chocolate, and a double shot of espresso provide a superior chocolate flavor.

The cake on the photo is impatiently sliced warm.

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It happened so that I have never eaten or made an upside down cake that was a disappointment. They always turn out moist, caramely, and with a perfect crumb. Different fruits for a topping allow innumerable  variations of already lovely idea.

Blood oranges are great here since their skin is thinner and white bitter pith is less pronounced, so the cake gets just a hint of bitterness which is quite charming.

I wish you all wonderful holidays!!!

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It would be, probably, nice to post it last Wednesday – St. Patrick’s Day, but I’ve been running behind my schedule lately. This recipe is slightly adapted from very old Guinness brewers’ recipe which produces a flavorful, moist eggless cake.

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This month’s Daring Bakers’ challenge was Italian tiramisu. Deeba from Passionate About Baking and Aparna from My Diverse Kitchen, the hosts of the challenge, chose Carminantonio’s tiramisu recipe from the “The Washington Post”, July 11, 2007. The whole thing was supposed to be made completely from scratch, including the savoiardi/ladyfingers biscuits (the chosen recipe is from the “Le Cordon Bleu at Home”) and mascarpone cheese (thank you for choosing my recipe here).

Frankly, it was quite a surprise for me to read through the tiramisu ingredients list. The recipe is somewhat unusual. It calls for only 75g of mascarpone (it’s a rarity a tiramisu recipe requires less than a pound of cheese) and some pastry cream (my first thought was a cheaper substitute). The recipe creator, probably, was using what he had on hand (there’s always some crème patisserie stash in a commercial fridge). I’ve encountered many different recipes of the Italian classic and mostly everywhere Zabaglione is a must, folded whipped egg whites are quite common, pastry cream…? Really unusual…

I changed a few things here and there (couldn’t help myself, sorry). I tripled the cheese amount (I still made the required pastry cream, don’t disqualify me, please) and reduced the sugar. I used a different technique for mixing the savoiardi batter (I’m a strong believer in the power of well-whipped egg yolks) and higher temperature for baking: it is really a full-proof method that never fails me. I also added a touch of gelatin to the cream filling mixture, just a tiny bit to stabilize the whole thing, so the dessert could be presented free-standing and sliced neatly without freezing in advance. And since there was no need to chill the zabaglione and pastry cream, the addition of gelatin also allowed me to speed up the assembly (as usual, I procrastinated until the 27th and had to rush). I actually was able to unmold and slice it just after 3 hours of refrigerating (although, no doubt, the flavor does improve after overnight chilling).

As for the flavor I stepped out of the tradition (we were allowed to). I used the kumquats - wonderful citrus fruits with a very short season. I flavored the pastry cream and zabaglione with the kumquat zest, and used Grand Marnier instead of Marsala. I dipped the ladyfingers into a mixture of orange juice, Grand Marnier and candied kumquat syrup. The candied kumquats themselves became a topping and a layer at the bottom. Extra syrup was passed around to dribble over the plated slices.

Deeba, Aparna, thank you for hosting! It’s a great idea to master the ladyfingers; they are so versatile!

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