Pumpkin Gingerbread Trifle

Amarante

Tue, Aug 04 2020, 12:21 pm

The cake itself is delicious and you could just make it in a Bundt cake and leave it at that. However, serving it as a trifle elevates itself into a spectacular dessert especially since it is assembled ahead and you can bake the cake well in advance of the custard and then assemble the day before.

The three kinds of ginger - ground, fresh and crystallized complement each other and without the custard, the cake is pareve.

PUMPKIN GINGERBREAD TRIFLE

Excerpt From: Jane Green - Good Taste

Ingredients for Gingerbread:

Butter for baking dish
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1½ teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1½ cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup apple juice
1 cup dark molasses
2 eggs
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
½ cup chopped crystallized ginger

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and flour a 10" springform pan.

Stir together flour, cinnamon, cloves, ground ginger, baking soda and salt in a bowl.

Mix sugar with oil, juice, molasses, eggs and fresh ginger in a large bowl. Mix in crystallized ginger. Stir in flour mixture.

Pour into prepared pan. Then bake for 1 hour.

Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool completely.

Pumpkin Custard:

3 cups half-and-half
6 large eggs
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
⅓ cup molasses
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
3 cups puréed pumpkin, or about 1½ cans

Whipped Cream:

1 quart heavy cream
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup crystallized ginger
Method:

Preheat an oven to 325 degrees.

Scald the half-and-half in a heavy saucepan (which means take it to the edge of boiling, then remove from heat).

Beat eggs, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Mix in pumpkin and half-and-half. When it is smooth, put it in buttered baking dish, which you then put into a bain-marie: put dish into larger baking dish, and fill larger dish with hot water to about 1" below the rim of the custard dish. Bake for 50 minutes and start to check it. You want a set, firm custard, so that a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

To make whipped cream, whip heavy cream with vanilla extract, then fold in crystallized ginger, and set aside.

To assemble your trifle, spoon half the pumpkin custard into a trifle bowl and layer half the gingerbread over that and then half the whipped cream. Do it again. Top the final layer of whipped cream with gingersnaps, or gingersnap crumbs, and, if you like, drizzle with Calvados.