trifle
admittedly, not just any trifle. This is festival trifle. Trifle with Italian Christmas cake, pistachios, cardamom, heavy cream, and apricots soaked in hot sugared liquor (not in the original recipe). make your own panettone for this, and we’ll do our own you-tube video.
as it came to me from Nigella via my favorite kitchen witch:
Here you go love ~ from Nigella’s Feast
4.5 C dried apricots
6 C water
3/4 C superfine sugar
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1/2 orange or 1 tangerine
6 cardamom pods
1/2 pandoro or 1lb piece of pandoro or panettone
1 C heavy cream
1 C greek or whole milk yogurt
3 Tbs honey
1/4 C pistachios
1/4 C slivered almonds
amaretto if you like
Put apricots, water, sugar, juices in saucepan
Bruise cardamom, add to pan, stir
Bring to boil, turn down, add a few slugs of amaretto and simmer for 30 min
Drain apricots, discarding seeds and pods, put liquid back in pan, boil over high heat 15-20 min to reduce to syrup (to about 1.5 cups) – let cool
Cut pandoro into 1/2 inch wide, long slices. Line bowl with half of long slices, spread half of warm apricots over cake, pour half of suryp over this.
Repeat (placing slices opposite direction) – leave overnight covered with plastic wrap in fridge
Topping: whisk heavy cream till soft peaks, add yogurt and beat to combine – spread over trifle
Drizzle honey, scatter nuts
burfee with rose water, cardamon and pistachios
Most Indian deserts are made on a stove top, not baked like cakes, brownies, and pies. Not many ovens in India. But when they do have a birthday cake – story goes- there is a cake fight.
In a heavy saucepan, melt
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter.
Stir in
1 pound of ricotta cheese
and cook for 20 minutes, stirring with a slotted spoon or a whisk, banging it against the side frequently (a whisk really cages the cheese). Whisk in
just more than half of one 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk.
Cook for another 20 minutes, until very thick and fudgey. Add
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of rosewater
3 tablespoons of almond shavings
or whatever other flavoring feels like nirvana or Narnia or night-blooming jasmine scented seduction to you.
Pour into a shallow baking pan or onto a cookie tray or into a mini-muffin tin. Top with
2 teaspoons of ground cardamom
2 tablespoons crushed pistachios.
sparkly decorator sugar; i used “silver”
Or edible silver leaf, but like I said… Refrigerate until solid; great to make the night before and let sit overnight. Cut into diamonds.
These recipes are based primarily on Neelam Batra’s recipes in The Indian Vegetarian: Simple Recipes for Today’s Kitchen, Hungry Minds Inc. (1998). Neela likens burfee to brownies.
I want to make beet burfee. The improvising will soon begin, but if anyone who reads this has a recipe, please do share.
