This trifle could fight off a cold.
Somehow or another, I’ve acquired a 9 or 10 issue subscription to Sunset magazine. I didn’t order it. I didn’t pay for it. And according to the subscription label, my first name is “Meliss”. Despite all this, I’m enjoying the magazine’s recipes. I made their Caramelized Vegetable and Meatball Soup a couple of weeks ago and I made this Orange Trifle this weekend.
“Wow! Wow! Wow!” is how I feel about this trifle. It’s absolutely positively fantastic. I made it on Saturday afternoon and it’s nearly gone already. Yes, we did share a little bit of it…but my trifle bowl is pretty ginormous.
It’s early in the year but this trifle is already a strong candidate for my favorite homemade dessert of 2009. All of the oranges and orange based ingredients make it taste really fresh. It’s also not very heavy because of the ladyfingers and the mounds of super fluffy whipped cream & mascarpone cheese. I’d much rather eat this than something heavy and full of chocolate.
You could also justify this dessert as being sort of good for you because of all the Vitamin C from the oranges. Ignore the heavy cream and cheese and just think about the oranges. The cold and flu fighting oranges.
The recipe is here. As usual, I made some alterations. I’ve also got some advice about this dessert.
Here’s my advice and the changes I made to the recipe:
- Don’t make this dessert if you don’t have an entire afternoon on your hands. Trifles in general take a while to assemble. This one takes a little longer than a while. Despite this, it was totally worth it.
- The recipe calls for medium oranges. Save yourself some trouble and use large oranges. The larger the better. I used a mix of large oranges and clementines. Don’t use clementines. While they do taste great, cutting them as the recipe instructs is way too difficult. I chose to use them and I will not do that again.
- The recipe uses pound cake. As I said in my post for the Hazelnut Trifle I made several months ago, pound cake is heavy and I don’t like using it in trifles. So I made homemade ladyfingers again. I think I’ll write a separate post (with recipe) later this week.
- I wanted my Orange Trifle to taste a little bit like an orange Creamsicle. To achieve this, I used a little bit of vanilla extract in the whipped cream and mascarpone cheese mixture. I also added some Stoli vanilla vodka to the liquour mixture (in addition to the orange liqueur used in the recipe). The ladyfingers are also vanilla flavored. The Creamsicle taste was achieved.
- The recipe calls for just 3/4 of a cup of heavy cream. I used a full 2 cups. I wanted more cream filling. Can you really blame me? The recipe’s instructions for the cream remained the same other than that..
Monday, 2. February 2009 21:55
“Sunset Magazine” sounds like something targeted at people more than twice your age. I was not expecting it to be what it was at all. Weird.
Tuesday, 3. February 2009 18:27
Wow, I had no idea Sunset Magazine was still around! I remember the magazine and Sunset how-to books from my childhood in the 1950s and ’60s. My mother and aunts always had them lying around. I have a wonderful recipe for lemon-yogurt cake that I got from a library copy of The Sunset Book of Entertaining (I think) in the ’70s.
I wonder where Melissa’s mysterious subscription came from?
Tuesday, 3. February 2009 18:41
Alison – Yes, “Sunset Magazine” does sound like a publication for the very senior citizen set. But it’s clearly not and a lot of the articles would probably be more interesting to you since it’s about the Western U.S.
Janis – I vaguely remember my mom having some Sunset stuff as well. Their recipes are still great.
And if anyone wants to send anymore magazines to me or to “Meliss”, email me and I’ll give you my mailing address.
Tuesday, 3. February 2009 18:56
I made this trifle too!!! For thanksgiving my mom and I made it together and we loved it too, although yours sounds so much better with homemade ladyfingers! To die for. AND your pictures are much prettier than mine haha, mine is on my blog too
Wednesday, 4. February 2009 11:38
I love trifles but have only ever had chocolate ones. This looks great! And sure, it’s “health” food.
Wednesday, 4. February 2009 16:03
Ive never tried an orange trifle before. I make a raspberry one that is amazing, but now I am tempted to try orange! Thanks for the inspiration!
Thursday, 5. February 2009 15:51
Hi there,
Just came across your blog, and it is so much fun! Lovely recipes, great writing. I’ve got you bookmarked, and will definitely be back.
Thursday, 5. February 2009 20:51
This looks fabulous…I am under the weather and could use a big bowl of this to chase my cold a way fast.
Sunday, 8. February 2009 12:19
I love trifle! My grandmother used to always make us trifle when she invited us over — thanks for sharing this
Fabulous pictures 