Blueberry Trifle

 Trifle is a quintessential English dessert, which the Brits call pudding. A trifle is layers of pound cake, soaked in booze, covered with jam – they call it jelly, smothered in custard, and topped with whipped cream and fruit. What’s not to like?

Trifle also means a detail that is considered insignificant: which can be used to reference this dessert, I mean pudding. A trifle is a thrown together dessert that you can make in a second if you live in the UK and happen to have pound cake, booze, jam and custard in your house, which you probably would.

My spin on the traditional trifle is actually somewhat healthy….

 Blueberry Trifle

 This dessert/pudding tastes fattening, but it’s not. It uses seasonal frozen blueberries, can be made ahead of time, and you get to buy the Angelfood cake.

 If you’re a real food purist then go-ahead and bake the Angelfood cake from scratch. For my Downton Abbey Dinner I went all Mrs Patmore and made the cake from scratch.

 2 cups (500 mL) frozen blueberries, divided

¼ cup (60 mL) sugar or sweetener of your choice, divided

1.5 tsp (7 mL) cornstarch

¾ cup (175 mL) cold water

4 oz (125 g) low fat cream cheese at room temperature- I really like the Blue Menu brand form Loblaw

2 tablespoons (30 mL) frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed

¾ cup (175 mL) non-fat , low fat plain yogurt or 0% fat Greek style yogurt

1 tsp (5 mL) lemon zest

2 ½ cups (625 mL) Angel food cake cut into ½ -inch (1 cm) cubes

 

1. Blueberry Sauce: In small saucepan, combine ½ cup (125 mL) of the blueberries, 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the sugar, all of the cornstarch and the water. Stir until cornstarch is dissolved.
2. Bring to a boil; stir until sauce is a clear purple color, has thickened and the berries have popped. It takes about 3- 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and add 1 cup (250 mL) of the blueberries. Stir in and set aside to cool.
3. Yogurt mixture: Meanwhile in small bowl beat the low fat cream cheese until smooth. Add the remaining 2 tablespoons (30 mL) sugar and the orange juice concentrate and continue beating until smooth. Gently beat in yogurt.
4. Wash and dry lemon. Zest, using a microplane and add to the yogurt mixture. Set aside.
5. Get out 6 martini glasses or any other show stopping glasses you have.
6. Place about ¼ cup (60 mL) of the cake cubes into the bottom of each glass; top with about 2 tbsp (30 mL) of the Blueberry Sauce and about 2 tablespoons (30 mL) of the Yogurt mixture; repeat.
7. Garnish each glass with the remaining blueberries, dividing them equally between the 6 servings.  Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before serving. 

 

Makes 6 servings

One serving made with non fat yogurt contains: 190 Calories, 3.2 g Total fat, 2.1 g Sat Fat, 0 g Trans Fat, 302 mg Sodium, 36.1 g Carbs, 2 g Fibre, 18.1 g Sugars, 5 g Protein

 Diabetes Food Choice Values Per Serving: 2 ½ Carbohydrates, ½ Fat

 Professional home economist tips:

·         In Canada most plain cream cheese is sold in 250 g packages. For this recipe cut it in half for the correct amount.

·         This recipe uses one half of a 282 g store bought Angelfood cake. I love that I can either freeze the other half in its own little container for the next time or eat the rest of this heavenly cake in a couple of days.If you are making the Angel Food cake from scratch you will only end up using about 1/4 of the cake.

Serving idea: Serve Blueberry Trifle in a 1 quart (1 L) glass bowl by arranging in layers, half of the cake cubes topped with half of the blueberry sauce and yogurt mixture; repeat.  Garnish with remaining ½ cup (125 mL) blueberries.  Cover and refrigerate for about 2 hours.

 I Mairlynized this recipe from the BC Blueberry website www.bcblueberry.com

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