youtube pinterest twitter facebook instagram vimeo whatsapp Bookmark Entries BURGER NEW Chevron Down Chevron Left Chevron Right Basket Speech Comment Search Video Play Icon Premium Nigella Lawson Vegan Vegetarian Member Speech Recipe Email Bookmark Comment Camera Scales Quantity List Reorder Remove Open book
Menu Signed In
More Nigella recipes

Ginger Passionfruit Plate Trifle

by . Featured in NIGELLA EXPRESS
Print me

Introduction

I do adore a trifle, enjoying the quiet ceremony of building the layers in advance quite as much as each luscious spoonful later. A good trifle doesn’t require a great deal of technique, but it does need time. So some long years ago, I came up with a quick version which I call a Plate Trifle, as its construction requires no more than a plate which you line with slices of sponge cake splashed up with booze, topped first with whipped cream, then fruit. It’s open to any number of iterations, and is a wonderful way of using up stale cake. However, I’ve stipulated shop-bought cake in the ingredients as this started life as a last-minute, no-time-to-cook trifle; obviously, feel free to bake your own cake if you prefer. The warming ginger wine and the acerbic but fragrant passionfruit are an exquisite combination, but this is the very antithesis of a precision-led recipe. In other words, let this assembly-job of a pud suit what you have in your drinks cupboard and kitchen!

And bear in mind that, unlike with a traditional trifle, a plate trifle is very well suited to a modest number of eaters. And this recipe halves like a dream. Conversely, I must tell you that as simple it may be, it is also fabulously rich, so when you do need to feed a crowd, this always makes the most stress-free of treaty puds.

For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

I do adore a trifle, enjoying the quiet ceremony of building the layers in advance quite as much as each luscious spoonful later. A good trifle doesn’t require a great deal of technique, but it does need time. So some long years ago, I came up with a quick version which I call a Plate Trifle, as its construction requires no more than a plate which you line with slices of sponge cake splashed up with booze, topped first with whipped cream, then fruit. It’s open to any number of iterations, and is a wonderful way of using up stale cake. However, I’ve stipulated shop-bought cake in the ingredients as this started life as a last-minute, no-time-to-cook trifle; obviously, feel free to bake your own cake if you prefer. The warming ginger wine and the acerbic but fragrant passionfruit are an exquisite combination, but this is the very antithesis of a precision-led recipe. In other words, let this assembly-job of a pud suit what you have in your drinks cupboard and kitchen!

And bear in mind that, unlike with a traditional trifle, a plate trifle is very well suited to a modest number of eaters. And this recipe halves like a dream. Conversely, I must tell you that as simple it may be, it is also fabulously rich, so when you do need to feed a crowd, this always makes the most stress-free of treaty puds.

For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

Ginger Passionfruit Trifle
Photo by Lis Parsons

Ingredients

Serves: 8-10

Metric Cups
  • approx. 500 grams shop-bought sponge cake
  • 125 millilitres stone's green ginger wine
  • 500 millilitres double cream
  • 4 teaspoons icing sugar
  • 8 passionfruit
  • 1 pound shop-bought pound cake
  • ½ cup stone's green ginger wine
  • 2 cups heavy cream
  • 4 teaspoons confectioners' sugar
  • 8 passionfruit

Method

  1. Slice or break the sponge into pieces and arrange half of them in a shallow dish or cake stand with slight lip or upward curve at edge, then pour half the ginger wine over them.
  2. Mound up the remaining half of sponge and pour the remaining ginger wine on top.
  3. Whip the cream with the icing sugar until it is firm but not stiff; you want soft peaks.
  4. Scoop the insides of 2 passionfruit into the bowl of cream and fold in before mounding the cream floppily over the soused sponge.
  5. Scoop out the remaining 6 passionfruit onto the white pile of cream so that it is doused and dribbling with the black seeds and fragrant golden pulp.
  1. Slice or break the sponge into pieces and arrange half of them in a shallow dish or cake stand with slight lip or upward curve at edge, then pour half the ginger wine over them.
  2. Mound up the remaining half of sponge and pour the remaining ginger wine on top.
  3. Whip the cream with the confectioners' sugar until it is firm but not stiff; you want soft peaks.
  4. Scoop the insides of 2 passionfruit into the bowl of cream and fold in before mounding the cream floppily over the soused sponge.
  5. Scoop out the remaining 6 passionfruit onto the white pile of cream so that it is doused and dribbling with the black seeds and fragrant golden pulp.

Tell us what you think

What 3 Others have said

  • Super easy to put together and super tasty!!

    Posted by LozzyS on 13th March 2019
  • One of my favourite recipes, I sweeten the cream with lavender honey and vanilla paste rather than sugar to add another dimension.

    Posted by Alqualisse on 24th December 2012
  • Fantastic summer pudding x so easy to make, first time i made it i went overboard on the ginger Wine but soon got the quantity right for me.

    Posted by healey on 7th November 2011
Show more comments