Jello Recipes
Fresh Strawberry Trifle Recipe with Red Wine
A trifle is a dessert, which is normally made with fruit, custard, fruit juice or jello, whipped cream and some kind of sponge cake or ladyfingers. The ingredients are normally layered with the cake and fruit on the bottom and the cream on top. The first trifle recipes comprised a thick, sweetened cream, which contained rosewater, ginger, and sugar. This recipe appeared in the 1596 book, "The Good Housewife's Jewel" by Thomas Dawson. The custard and milk was added, as well as the alcohol and cake, sixty years after.
The following is a very special fresh strawberry trifle recipe because the strawberries are cooked in wine, vanilla, and sugar, giving them a really sophisticated flavor. For a stronger flavor, add a little port wine to the red wine. Zinfandel would be a good red wine to use or something quite dry but fruity too. The vanilla cookies are unusual in this recipe. Trifle recipes usually contain cubes of cake or ladyfingers but the vanilla cookies work well. Leaving the trifle to chill for a few hours or overnight before serving it means the cookies absorb a lot of the juice from the marinated strawberries, giving them a soft texture and a wonderful taste.
This is a very easy fresh strawberry trifle recipe and the red wine and cookies makes it elegant enough for a dinner party dessert. If you are using quite small serving glasses, you might get ten servings. If you have bigger ones, you will get about eight.
Recipe for Fresh Strawberry Trifle with Vanilla Cookies
Ingredients -
½ cup white sugar
1 ½ cups dry red wine
1 package instant vanilla pudding
2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 quart halved fresh strawberries
1 package vanilla cookies
Preparation:
Bring the wine and ⅓ cup of the white sugar to a boil in a pan and keep boiling the mixture for 5 minutes or until it has reduced to 1 cup.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the sliced strawberries and vanilla extract.
Let it cool for an hour, stirring a few times.
Break the cookies into small pieces.
Whisk the instant vanilla pudding with the milk.
Divide half the pudding between 10 serving glasses, and then top it with ¾ of the cookies.
Add half the strawberries, then the rest of the pudding and finally the rest of the strawberries.
Sprinkle the remaining cookie pieces over the top.
Chill the trifle for a few hours or up to twenty four hours, so the flavors can blend.
(Serves 10)
Photo Description:
The seemingly simple combination of vanilla cookies, strawberries, and pudding make a light, refreshing dessert and this fresh strawberry trifle recipe is ideal for any summertime lunch or dinner. When you taste the strawberries, you will be able to tell that they were soaked in a sweetened red wine and vanilla marinade and this really does make them extra delicious. For a much more simple trifle recipe, you can omit the marinade and just combine the cookies, pudding, and fruit. This is a bright and colorful trifle recipe, which is sure to thrill anybody you serve it to.
How to Choose the Freshest Strawberries
Succulent, vine-ripened strawberries taste amazing when served alone, with cream or as part of a summer dessert like a fresh strawberry trifle recipe. Growing your own strawberries is not difficult but how do you choose the best ones from the store and what do you need to look out for? Actually, the best ones are those from local produce stands or farmers' markets. Choose the most fragrant, fattest berries. Another great option is to pick your own from local strawberry fields. For juicier, sweeter berries, you should choose locally grown berries from the grocery store rather than imported ones. The local strawberry season lasts a maximum of one month.
They should be fresh-looking, bright, and firm, without bruises or mold. The stems should be green and full attached. The strawberries should be clean and dry. Small or medium ones tend to have a superior flavor to huge ones. Remember that strawberries do not ripen after they have been picked so do not expect any green ones to turn red.
Look for unstained containers because stained ones might mean the berries are too soft and therefore too ripe. Over-ripe berries will be mushy and not work as well as fresh ones in your fresh strawberry trifle recipes. If you do find a moldy berry, remove it from the container because mold spreads quickly and the berry next to it might go moldy unless you remove the bad one.
How to Store Strawberries
Use your strawberries as soon as you can because they will not ripen any more. Separate any very soft ones from the rest, discarding any rotten or mushy ones. Leave the caps on until you are ready to use the strawberries to make a strawberry trifle recipe or another recipe. Do not wash them until you are going to use them because moisture is not good for strawberry storage. Strawberries have a superior flavor at room temperature so take them out of the refrigerator an hour before serving.
Store them uncovered in a colander in the refrigerator so the air can circulate around them. Remove the caps after you have washed the berries, not before, because the caps keep the moisture out of the berries and stop it from breaking down the flavor and texture of the fruit. Rinse the berries under cool water and pat them dry with paper towels. You can put them in a salad spinner to remove excess water before using them in your fresh strawberry trifle recipe.
