NO-COOK STRAWBERRY, AMARETTO & ALMOND TRIFLE

I’m giving us a break.

We’ve had too many green things and too many savoury things in bowls lately. It’s time for a change around here. Our bowls are demanding something sweet, for mercy’s sake. We’ve proven we’re capable of a little restraint (I didn’t eat that entire loaf of bread myself, I promise) so I think it’s time we prove to ourselves that we have the ability to eat the slightly more indulgent things in appropriate measures.

A trifle can happily be that proof.

This is an absolutely no-cook trifle. It’s as easy to make and assemble as it is easy to eat, but I will be honest with you here – I didn’t come up with this trifle recently. In fact, I came up with it many, many years ago (in lockdown, as a matter of fact) for my mother’s birthday when the shops were all closed and I was limiting how often I was leaving the house unnecessarily. So this easy, no-cook trifle was born to serve a multitude of purposes.

It’s a decadent concoction, but quite vulgar in its execution. That meaning, all of the ingredients are pre-made and shop-bought, knocking about in my cupboards and freezer at the time. My mother’s birthday was looming, I didn’t have what I needed to make a proper cake, so I opted to make one of her favourite puddings but with the ingredients I had to hand. She loved it, I loved it, the bubble loved it, blah, blah… but we never spoke of it again. Not because it wasn’t good, but because its creation vanished from my recollection.

That is until my partner and I bought a bureau and I emptied an old drawer to move its contents into the new bureau, and came across a notebook. Therein lay the haphazard scrawling of a madman (me) and the initial concept for a trifle I could assemble using pre-made ingredients. Disgusted at my own use of pre-made custard but excited that I had a pudding recipe hidden away for those days when you can’t be arsed to cook, I had to revisit it.

I tweaked the recipe slightly from the offensively lazy original (which used thawed, frozen strawberries as a layer without any pureeing, no fresh strawberries, or the addition of amaretto and almond notes) so the below is not exactly faithful to it’s lazy beginnings, but it exists in it’s spirit.

The custard, though? I know that’s a hard sell for some. Some people love shop-bought custard (me, again. I am some people) but I know others recoil.

So if you’re the type of person who wants to make their own custard for this, here’s a super quick recipe for an eggy, vanilla one:

500ml whole milk

3 large egg yolks

50g white sugar

2 tbs cornflour

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk until it’s warm but not boiling, stirring as it goes.
2. While the milk heats, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, and cornflour until you get a smooth paste.
3. Slowly pour in a small splash of the warm milk into the egg mixture, whisking constantly so that it doesn’t curdle. Our the mix back into the original saucepan, and return to the hob on a low heat.
4. Pour the rest of the milk slowly into the saucepan and cook for a further 5 mins or so, whisking continuously, until the custard thickens.
5. Once thickened, remove from the heat and stir ins the vanilla extract.
6. Transfer the custard to a jug and cover with some cling firm to prevent a skin forming. Allow to cool before using.

If, however, you are not bothered at all by shop bought custard, continue on with the recipe below, using custard straight from the carton. No shame here, guys.

Serves 4 – 6

300g frozen strawberries

2 tbs white sugar

1 tsp rosewater

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 lemon

200ml double cream

1 tsp almond extract

1 tbs icing sugar

150g fresh strawberries

50g almonds – bashed to small pieces, dry fried in a pan and cooled

6 slices broche

3 tbs amaretto liquor

400ml ready-made custard (or cold homemade custard, see recipe above)

1. In a bowl, combine the frozen strawberries, sugar, rosewater, and vanilla extract. Grate over the zest of the lemon, and then squeeze in the juice (mind the pips). Leave to sit for 6 – 8 hours to thaw, but I just leave them in the fridge overnight.
2. While these thaw, combine the double cream, almond extract, and icing sugar in a large bowl and whip until soft peaks forms. I lazily use an electric whisk, but if you’ve got time and energy, a normal whisk will be just fine. You can keep this in the fridge until you’re ready to assemble.
3. In the meantime, while the strawberries thaw and the double cream sits, there’s nothing stopping you here from slicing the fresh strawberries as finely as you can, and bashing/toasting your almonds, stashing both away once done until you’re ready to assemble.
4. When that time comes, first soak your brioche which shouldn’t soak for too long. Place the brioche in a shallow dish or in a roasting tin and drizzle with the amaretto, allowing them to soak up the liquor for about 5 minutes or so, turning the slices gently.
5. Now take out the thawed strawberries and using the back of a fork, mush them as much as you can to create a kind of textured strawberry puree. I like to use a stick blender for this to make it super jammy and saucy and take away the slug-like texture of frozen strawberries, but you can do what’s easier for you here.
6. Take out the double cream out of the fridge, grab the pre-made custard, fresh cut strawberries, and toasted almonds, and then and we’re ready to assemble.
7. In a tall jar or a trifle dish of some description, layer the ingredients like so:
   • The double cream
   • The thawed frozen strawberry puree
   • The pre-made custard
   • The amaretto soaked brioche
   • The fresh strawberries
8. Repeat this order until the jar or bowl is full, finishing with a layer of double cream and then sprinkle the top with the toasted almonds.
9. Cover and refrigerate (hopefully you have space in your fridge if it’s a tall jar,,,) for an hour or so before serving,