Black Forest Amaretto Trifles  

I’m heading off to uni in a couple of days where I’ll be in the land of little space and little money, so recently I’ve been doing a load of cooking to make the most of the time I’ve got left. The result of doing a load of cooking at once is that you end up having the weirdest niche ingredients lying around the kitchen which then work their way into new recipes. A little while ago I made some stuffed amaretti peaches (recipe coming soon!) and so I had half a bag of amaretti biscuits leftover. I found myself snacking on these biscuits for a couple of days before I realised that rather than snacking on them I should probably use them to make something else. They’re not something I have lying around very often but they can add great flavour to a dish!

So that’s how these came into being. Some crushed amaretti biscuits in the bottom of a glass, topped with some spiced, previously frozen cherries (keeping frozen fruit in the freezer is the most useful thing for speedy, quick desserts!) and then a chocolate custard type thing on the top. The custard layer in this takes a while to thicken as it doesn’t use eggs, so if you want to make this super quick you could just make a light ganache by heating up some double cream and pouring it over the same amount of chopped chocolate. Then add 2 tsp milk and mix until combined. This may make the dessert a little richer, but it’ll make it super quick to put together.

Recipe

Serves 4

Time: 20 minutes (may be a little longer depending on how long it takes for your custard to set!)

Ingredients

For the Cherry layer

• 150g Frozen cherries
• 50g Caster sugar
• ½ tsp Ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp Ground ginger
• ½ tsp Vanilla bean paste

For the Chocolate layer

• 500ml Milk
• 1 tbsp Plain flour
• 2 tbsp Caster sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla bean paste
• 60ml Amaretto
• 100g Dark chocolate
• 50g Unsalted butter

For the Topping/Base

• 250ml Double cream
• 125g Amaretti Biscuits, plus a few extra to decorate

Method

1. Begin with the cherry layer. Put the cherries, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla and 2 tbsp water into a pan and bring to a gentle simmer. Leave until the cherries are squishy and the juices are running out of them but the cherries are still in shape. Set aside for later.
2. Now make the chocolate layer. Put the milk into a pan and heat gently.
3. In another bowl put the flour, sugar and vanilla into a bowl and whisk together until smooth. Slowly pour the warm milk over the mixture, whisking constantly to combine, and then pour the custard mix back into the pan.
4. Place the pan back onto a medium heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens and is smooth.
5. Add the amaretto and mix it in. Then take the pan off the heat and stir in the chocolate and the butter until they’ve melted. Set aside for now.
6. To prep the topping pour the double cream into a bowl and whisk gently until soft peaks form. Leave somewhere cool (like in a fridge) until needed. Then crush the amaretti biscuits and put them into a bowl.
7. Now you’re ready to start layering the trifles. Take 4 shallow glasses or one large serving dish and sprinkle ½ the amaretti biscuits into the bottom. Then spoon over ½ the chocolate mixture, followed by the cherries, keeping a few aside to decorate. Portion out the rest of the chocolate mixture between the glasses and smooth over with a spoon to make an even layer. Dollop the cream onto the top of the trifle(s) and finish with a sprinkle of the rest of the rest amaretti biscuits and a cherry. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!
Emma x