Satan's Trifle

Oh yes. The many folks on twitter and various blogs have been BEGGING me to post the how to for to make it.

Satan's Trifle.

Firstly, let me give full acknowledgment for the name to one of my twitter followers, Michelle Rodriguez.

Nextly, to my wonderful Wifey-Poo for coming up with the idea.

And finally, thanks to all of you for letting me string you along for a week as you wonder about this wonderful dessert.

Does anyone like chocolate? Does anyone like cherries? Does anyone like Baileys? If you answered, "Hell yeah!" to all of those queries then you'll love this trifle.

Wife and I came up with this as we were perusing the pantry trying to find trifle fixin's. We saw that if we made it all chocolate then we'd have everything 'cept the chocolate sponge roll. Poof! Idea was born!

Please note, I used Father O'Leary's instead of Baileys as O'Leary's is better. And Australian. So there.

And a last note, if you don't feel confident making your own chocolate custard (it is easy, trust me) then you can use a choc custard or choc pudding mix but you've got to make it THICK. Very thick.

Last note... I never measure for this type of dessert, but I did measure for the custard. You're welcome. For those of you who normally make your own custard, the amounts will seem "off". That's ok, it's is supposed to be very thick and set like chocolate concrete.

On with the show, cus the show must go on.

Satan's Trifle

What you need:
One chocolate sponge cake roll (see pictures)
Father O'Leary's Velvet Cream --or Baileys
Cornflour --cornstarch to you North Americans
Large bar of dark cooking chocolate
Skim milk powder --I usually use full cream milk powder
200 grams of pitted, halved, fresh cherries
milk chocolate melts
raw sugar
thickened whipping cream
drinking chocolate OR 100% cocoa powder plus confectionery sugar

Now doesn't that just put POUNDS on your middle? Ohhhhhhhhh... Yeaaaaaaaaaah!

Here's the assembled goodies:




Lastly, you may want to use a trifle dish. You can't use mine as it's from the 1890's and is leaded crystal. It also has a big crack in it from MIL's mum. See, me granmum-in-law was kind of a dill in the kitchen and she had inherited this trifle dish from her mum. She thought cleaning it with boiling water after just serving up a cold trifle in it would be a good thing. Sigh.

But if you can't get a trifle dish, then use a large plate and make SURE the chocolate custard is very thick. Like mortar consistency thick.

What you do:

This particular "what you do" will be picture orientated as I know you all likes piccies. Food piccies, of course.

The first thing is to slice the chocolate sponge roll into one inch thick slices. Thusly,

Yes, that is a 50 year old Pierre Santini bread knife, thankyouverymuch.



At this point you want to lay the slices out flat on a plate...

and put them in a very warm place to dry out for an hour or two. Being in Oz, that means I just put em outside in the sun for a few minutes.

The reason you want the slices to dry out is so that when you saturate the slices with O'Leary's it (being the Baileys) doesn't cause the chocolate sponge cake to go mushy. If you aren't sure what I'm talking about, just trust me and dry out the slices, 'k?

Whilst the slabs of chocolate sponge cake roll are drying, you'll want to make the chocolate custard. If you choose to use packet mixes of chocolate pudding or chocolate custard, then you are excused from looking at the next few pics. Just make sure you make your custard THICK!

Now, let's assemble the stuff for the chocolate custard. That'd be raw sugar, cornflour (cornstarch), milk powder, thickened whipping cream, and dark cooking chocolate.

And a thick bottomed steel saucepan.

First, melt 100 grams dark cooking chocolate. You can use a double boiler, but I usually use a microwave on low.




To make the really thick chocolate custard do this:
to 1 and 3/4 cup water (H2O), mix in
8 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
5 tbsp raw sugar
7 tbsp skim milk powder (or full cream, your choice)

Whisk it all together THOROUGHLY!

Heat it in your thick bottomed saucepan whilst whisking the whole time. It will, not surprisingly, thicken up till the whisk stands up!




Once it starts to really thicken, you obviously want to take it off the heat and let the heat from the pan base do the rest. At this point, it'll be close to concrete like consistency and you'll have thought you ruined it. No, you didn't.

Now, to that pan add 1/2 cup thickened whipping cream plus 2 tbsp icing sugar and beat like crazy! I recommend an electric beater.



Then add the melted chocolate as the electric beaters do their thing!




You should (fingers crossed) end up with a chocolately custard of a consistency like thus:




It really does only take ten minutes to make the custard, and no fridge setting time either. I much prefer this to using the pre-made powder packets.

Getting back to the trifle.

Spread your semi-dried slabs of chocolate sponge roll onto your trifle dish. Feel free to cut some of them in half so they all fit nicely into the dish:




Didja notice that bottle next to the dish? Of course you did. Next pour at least 1 cup of Baileys or O'Leary's over the slices.

You'll be quite happy you dried the slices, otherwise the liquid would turn the whole thing into mush at this point. And you don't want that!

Remember those chocolate melts and the cherries?




First, fill all the gaps betwixt the chocolate cake slices with chocolate melts. Then layer a few on top just for the heck of it!




Your delicious, fresh, pitted, sliced cherries go on next:




Now it's time to start packin' that chocolate custard on!




As you are packing on the custard, you want to make sure it gets into all the gaps. Cus when you put this baby into the fridge to set, you'll have chocolate mortar betwixt the chocolate cake bricks!

Smooth all the custard out till it looks all purdy like.



Now it's time to make the chocolate whipped cream. If you are using "drinking chocolate" then add a 4 tbsp to 300 mls (that's one cup plus a bit) cream. Then beat with your electric beaters till "stiff peaks form". If you are using cocoa powder and icing sugar, then use a tbsp or two of each, no worries.

Your chocolate whipped cream should now look thusly:




Not even sure if I need to tell you this next step, but go ahead and start slathering that chocolate cream over the chocolate custard which itself covers the cherries, chocolate melts, and chocolate cake.




Don't forget to clean up the edges for presentation purposes!



At this point, your Satan's Trifle should look something similar to this:




But we aren't done yet! Remember that other half of your bar of dark cooking chocolate? Good, you do. Go grab it and grab a cheese grater.




Ladies and Gentlemen... Start your grating!




And don't stop grating till you are out of chocolate and your Satan's Trifle looks like THIS!




Chill that baby in the fridge for a few hours, then ENJOY!

It took 4 of us 3 days to finish this. It is rather... rich.

Disclaimer: blog author is not responsible for pimples, heart palpitations, sugar highs, or anything else you can damned well think of. So there.