Apron Free Cooking ~ Trifle

By Noel Lizotte

I’ve been think­ing about Mother’s Day. It’s com­ing … May 13. In prepa­ra­tion, I’ve been look­ing through my recipe files to find my mom’s favorite menu items.

Straw­berry short­cake and pie were a cou­ple I found. Then I found this recipe for tri­fle. My mom is a big fan of straw­ber­ries, if you notice the com­mon ingre­di­ent in all these recipes. I like this tri­fle recipe for its bold col­ors and fresh fruit.

The first time we had this light dessert was at a friend’s baby shower. The tri­fle was more pop­u­lar than the tra­di­tional cake with pink and blue icing dec­o­ra­tions! It is a nice alter­na­tive for folks who are watch­ing their calo­ries and fat grams. There’s a lot to be said for dessert that fits dietary requirements!

Tri­fle

1 pack­age French Vanilla instant pudding

1 Angel Food cake

1 quart straw­ber­ries, sliced

1 quart blue­ber­ries

Pre­pare the pud­ding accord­ing to pack­age direc­tions. Tear Angel Food cake into chunks. In a tall glass bowl or tri­fle dish, layer ingre­di­ents. Begin with cake, straw­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries, topped with pud­ding. Repeat lay­ers until dish is full or you run out of ingredients.

Approx­i­mate Nutri­tional Val­ues: Serv­ings 16. Amount Per Serv­ing: Calo­ries: 245, Total Fat: 10g, Cho­les­terol: 10mg, Sodium: 213mg, Total Carbs: 37g, Dietary Fiber: 1g, Pro­tein: 4g.

Make it a meal: This light and refresh­ing dessert fol­lows any meal eas­ily. For vari­ety, use any fresh fruit, chopped candy bars or other can­dies. Select a pud­ding fla­vor that com­pli­ments the fruit or candy.

Some of the com­bi­na­tions I’ve found work well are: kiwi, pineap­ple and lemon pud­ding. Reese’s pieces, choco­late chips and choco­late pud­ding. Marsh­mal­lows, bro­ken Her­shey bars, chopped wal­nuts and vanilla pud­ding. Bananas, coconut flakes, and banana pudding.

I’ve also had good luck exchang­ing the Angel food cake for pound cake or Devil’s food cake. If you are plan­ning a hol­i­day meal, you may con­sider using spice cake or red vel­vet, depend­ing on the menu. Keep in mind that the fla­vor and color com­bi­na­tions go a long ways towards mak­ing the dessert memorable.

To cre­ate indi­vid­ual serv­ings, you can use ice cream sun­dae or wine glasses. The tall, pretty glasses look very nice on the table and have a way of mak­ing peo­ple feel spe­cial. There’s some­thing about a spe­cial dessert in a pretty glass that is very appealing.

Mother’s Day, baby or bridal show­ers are per­fect times to place this recipe on the menu. Spring is a prime time to get plump, sweet straw­ber­ries. I say we include them in as many meals as we can while they’re fresh. Start plan­ning your Mother’s Day menu now!

Noel Lizotte is break­ing free of cor­po­rate stress with con­ve­nience cook­ing! www.apronfreecooking.com. She also writes a monthly col­umn at www.culinary.net.

Posted by Noel Lizotte on Apr 26 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.