A showstopper dessert to ring in the New Year
Sometimes you’re looking for shortcuts, and sometimes you’re looking to knock ‘em dead.
This dessert is a showstopper and has multiple steps, but it is sure to impress New Year’s Eve guests. At the same time, it maintains an air of informality that will make any guest feel at home.
It isn’t difficult. It can be broken down into some make-ahead steps, so that the day of the festivities you simply have to assemble the dessert and can spend the rest of the day getting everything else ready.
Or you can keep everything else simple, including not going crazy cleaning out closets that no one will look in, anyway. Just make this dessert and spend the rest of the day catching up on reading.
Honestly, pizza delivery and champagne followed up with this Cherry Spice Cake Trifle is a worthy invitation in itself, so you can cross everything else off your to-do list for a New Year’s Eve gathering.
The trifle is an essential English des- sert: cake, sometimes soaked in liqueur, covered in jam, fruit, custard and cream. It likely was invented to use up stale cake and cream that was about to turn in the days without reliable refrigeration.
Today it is served in a glass, straightsided bowl so the layers can be admired. But once it is spooned onto a dessert dish, it is really just a glorious, sticky mess. It is extravagant, gorgeous and a casual pudding all at once.
So whether you are donning sequins or denim, serving roast quail or Chinese take-out, this trifle can handle it.