So I have a confession about this recipe. It wasn’t supposed to be a trifle; it kind of ended up that way due to my idiocy in the kitchen. See truth be told I had set out on making these as cupcakes; the most amazing white cake cupcakes with a lemon curd filling and fresh raspberries nestled inside topped with a whipped white chocolate ganache frosting. Sound pretty fantastic, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Well I had bought a few days earlier these new fangled cupcake liners that are stiff therefore do not require to be placed in a muffin tin. You just place the cupcake papers (for lack of better words) on a baking sheet, fill and bake as you would a cupcake in a standard muffin/cupcake tin.
Yeah.. that didn’t work for me. Now it could have been that I overfilled the cupcake papers too much OR the liners just sucked in general. I know, more likely my fault BUT…I tried those free-standing cupcake papers a second time on a totally different recipe that is a no-fail for me in a cupcake tin and the same thing happened. Honestly I’m not convinced that I like them or that they even work. Do any of you use them and have you had success with them? If so, what are your tips/tricks to get them to work. Needless to say I made a dozen of those free-standing cupcakes and 9″ round cake to freeze (I doubled my batter). Well the cake came out gorgeous however those poor, poor cupcakes. They didn’t stand a chance. Not only did every single one overflow but then they all sunk in the middle upon cooling. I was able to salvage them…for parts. No way was I wasting cake – liner or not! This batter is way too awesome!
One thing I am is resourceful. I have to thank my parents for teaching me that. You all know my story – extremely poor family growing up and we learned to ‘make do’ with what food we had. Mom was forever taking the basics we had (flour, sugar, protein and butter) and producing some of the most amazing meals. AND on the rare occasion something she intended to make didn’t turn out right, she wouldn’t toss the dish but rather salvage it and turn it into something new. We were poor and wasting food wasn’t an option especially with 4 huge older brothers! Are you kidding me?! Ha!
My one brother is going to KILL me for telling this story (love you Dave!) but when he was younger (around 14 or 15), I was maybe 5 or 6, the boys had to take turns taking the dinner scraps down to our dogs for their supper. My mom would put their dried food in a big bucket, add warm water to make gravy and then toss in the pan drippings and any discard we had from dinner. Normally it was my picking out all the icky stuff (onions, tomatoes, gross stuff) and if we had beef any fat or gristle. That would all get mixed into this bucket and from the hot water, a thick gravy was formed. Honestly it looked pretty good (like stew actually)… for dog food. Well every time Dave would feed the dogs he would walk SUPER slow down to feed them but no one could figure out why. So one day after dinner my Dad went outside down by the dogs to work on something and he heard the kitchen door. Here comes my brother Dave walking down VERY SLOWLY to the dogs, who by this time, were going nuts because they were hungry.
HOWEVER… yes, there’s a HOWEVER. My darling brother was STILL hungry so as he walked down VERY SLOWLY he was shoveling in the dog food into his mouth. LOL Yeah I know, “EWWWWWWWWWWW!” My Dad yelled up at him, Dave just about jumped out of his skin and the dogs were barking like mad. After that, he wasn’t allowed to feed the dogs without me going with him because he knew I was tell on him. LOL Gotta love siblings!
As I was saying, Mom let nothing go to waste and could turn anything into a fabulous dish…including dry dog food, huh brother dear? BAHAHAHA! Yeah I’m so going to get my butt beat for that one!
Back to my kitchen and my ruined cupcakes… I was pretty ticked off because I ruined 12 normally perfect cupcakes (though I’m still partially blaming those free-standing papers) and had a pretty big mess to clean up. As I went to salvage the cupcakes figuring I could just stuff the bits and pieces into one and end up with a few nice cupcakes it just broke into big chunks… some of which found their way mysteriously to my mouth – not sure how that happened (wink!). Seriously this cake is amazing! Super moist and vanilla-y. Stupid cupcake papers! haha
Fortunately I made a double batch and turned the second batch into a 9″ cake that I had intended to freeze plain. Trust me having a frozen cake in the freezer is a God send! It’s perfect for unexpected company or when you’re hormonal and NEED something sweet NOW! So I whipped out one of my trifle bowls and just layered away. Since I had some extra cake leftover I made individual trifles in mason jars. I then popped a lid on them and Voila! Portable Personal Trifles! So yeah even though my cupcakes failed miserably, I was able to turn something that was crap into something gorgeous. This is my Saving Grace Trifle! Rather befitting don’t you think?
Lemon Raspberry Sunshine Trifle
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Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup Crisco (or can use 1/4 cup butter, softened and unsalted)
- 1/4 cup butter, softened and unsalted
- 2 Xl eggs, room temperature
- 2 tablespoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
- 1 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups lemon curd
- 3 cups fresh raspberries
- 2 cups heavy whipping cream, divided
- 1 cup white chocolate, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F, rack in the middle.
- Grease and flour the sides of 1 9” cake pan, lining the bottom with parchment paper.
- In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
- Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.
- Combine flour, salt and baking powder then add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
- Stir in the milk until batter is smooth.
- Pour into the prepared pan.
- Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven.
- Test with a cake tester where it comes out just with a few crumbs.
- Move the pan to a cooling rack to cool for at least 25-30 minutes in the pan.
- Remove the cake from the pan and allow to cool completely.
- While the cake is cooling place a bowl with beaters in the fridge for 1 hour.
- minutes before you take the bowl out of the fridge, melt the white chocolate and allow to come room temperature. You want it still melted but not hot.
- Remove the bowl from the fridge and add the heavy whipping cream.
- Beat until soft peaks form. Soft peaks means when you pull the beaters away you’ll have tips form but the tops of the tips will curl down. They aren’t quite stiff.
- Add the cooled white chocolate and whip until stiff peaks form.
- Transfer the mixture to a bowl and chill for 30 minutes.
- At this point you can cut the cake into small cubes or go for a more rustic look and gently crumble it leaving chunks. You don’t want crumbs but more chunks (smaller).
- In a trifle bowl add a third of the cake chunks.
- Top with a third of the white chocolate cream. lemon curd and 1 cup of raspberries.
- Repeat with another layer of cake, cream, curd and raspberries.
- Next add the remaining cake, cream, curd and place the raspberries in a decorative manner.
- Cover and chill for 1 hour before serving.
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