Another Delicious Failure

We'll have yet another delicious failure for dessert this evening. I tend to accumulate more than my share of culinary failures, because I'm constantly experimenting with methods and ingredients. If the recipe calls for flour, I want to find out if it will work with whole grain flour. If it calls for sugar, I want to try raw sugar or honey or maybe molasses. My experiments don't always work, but I always learn something.

Unfortunately, I had a mother who insisted wasting food was a cardinal sin. Consequently, I was quite the chubby little girl and as an adult, I am not able to throw away any food that might be marginally edible.

Yesterday's experimental cake was marginally edible, full of flavor but overly moist and unpleasantly dense. In December I might have soaked it with brandy and set it aflame as a Christmas pudding, but there's not much call for that sort of dessert in mid-February. If the thing were chocolate, I could mush it up with liquor, roll it in little balls and pass it off as some sort of Truffle; but it's an orange cake and who ever heard of orange truffles?

So  looking back to examples of thrifty cooks through the ages, I found the perfect solution: Trifle.

A Trifle is made up of layers of cake, pudding and fruit, often served with whipped cream. Traditional Trifle is made with sponge cake, but any sort of cake will do along with whatever fruit is in season. Stale leftover cake can be soaked with fruit syrup, or with liquor, in which case the Trifle becomes a Tipsy Parson.

The best pudding to layer in a Trifle is a Blanc Mange, which is a lovely term for old fashioned cornstarch pudding.  Please don't reach for a boxed pudding mix. Cornstarch pudding is ridiculously simple (and inexpensive) and nearly foolproof when made in a microwave. Recipes for both Trifle and Blanc Mange follow the jump.


RECIPE: TRIFLE OR TIPSY PARSON

Prettiest arranged in a glass bowl with straight sides or individual stemmed wine glasses.

Break up stale or leftover cake into 1" pieces. Drizzle well with fruit juice, light fruit syrup
or liquor of choice; cover and let sit for a few hours or overnight.

Alternate layers of cake, Blanc Mange (recipe below) and fruit in serving dish or glasses, ending with Blanc Mange. Top with whipped cream or other garnish.

Recipe: Blanc Mange (Cornstarch Pudding)

Whisk together in a microwave safe pitcher:

2 c. milk (almond, coconut or soy milk are fine)
3 Tbs. cornstarch
1/3 c. *fine raw sugar

Microwave on high for 2 minutes, then stir.  Continue to cook up another minute or until mixture begins to thicken. Stir and reduce heat to medium. Cook another 1 to 2 minutes, stirring often.  Mixture should be thick enough to coat a spoon.

Stir in 1 tsp. vanilla and other flavorings as desired (see options, below.)

If not using immediately, gently press plastic wrap directly onto the surface of the pudding; this will prevent a skin from forming. Chill until ready to use.  Pudding will thicken as it cools.

Options:
1 to 2 Tbs. grated orange or lemon zest
1/4 c. grated coconut plus 1 tsp. coconut or almond extract
2 tsp. instant coffee dissolved in 1 Tbs. hot milk
1/2 c. chocolate or butterscotch morsels, stirred in while pudding is very hot

* Often stores only carry coarse raw sugar. You can easily process it in a whirligig coffee grinder or food processor. Barely a second is needed to grind the sugar quite fine.