Wild Berries English Trifle and a Diabetic's Birthday Treat!

  Last Saturday we had some dear friends over for dinner.
One of them had just celebrated his birthday a few days before.
I wanted to make something special for dessert, such as a birthday cake but with him being diabetic, this became an extremely difficult challenge.



I searched high and low for diabetic recipes, only to come to the conclusion that if a diabetic has something sugary it's not going to harm him or her, provided that they very small portions.

Still I wanted something he could enjoy fairly freely. I remembered the very famous Zuppa Inglese, so appreciated in this region.

 According to wikipedia:
Recipes for this sweet first appeared in the towns of Bologna, Forlì, Ferrara and Reggio Emilia, all in the Emilia-Romagna region, in the late 1800s. Its origins are uncertain and one theory states that it originated in the 1500s kitchens of the Dukes of Este, the rulers of Ferrara who had frequent contact with England, when they asked their cooks to try to recreate the sumptuous "English Trifle" they had enjoyed at the Elizabethan court.

So I decided to adapt the recipe for the traditional English trifle using Italian ingredients.
Not a traditional trifle but not a traditional Zuppa Inglese recipe either :)

I had to omit the layer of jelly as I could not find fruit jelly anywhere here. Instead I used sugar free Berry jam to create two layers of sweet, fruit moistiness.

I placed all the ingredients on the table and enlisted Alex's  (I love flavour, me Junior) help, who was delighted to be able to do so and lick the spoon at every occasion!!

 Wild Berries Trifle 

Ingredients

12 ladyfingers

A generous portion of Amaretto

A generous selection of wild berries

1 Jar of Sugar free Berry jam

For the custard: 

500 mls of milk

50 mls of single cream

1 vanilla pod or half a tsp of vanilla extract

30 gs of sugar

1 tsp of flour

4 egg yolks

200 mls of whipped cream slightly sweetened

Decoration of your choice. I wanted it to look quite birthday cake like.

Directions

First, you need to make your custard.

Bring the milk, cream and vanilla pod to simmering point slowly over a low heat.
Remove the vanilla pod (wash the vanilla pod, dry and store in jar with caster sugar to make vanilla sugar).
Whisk the yolks, sugar and flour together in a bowl until well blended
Pour the hot milk and cream on to the eggs and sugar, whisking all the time with a balloon whisk.
Return to the pan, (add vanilla extract if using) and over a low heat gently stir with a wooden spatula until thickened.

Let it cool. And rewisk just before using it in the trifle. This was Alex's job!

Layer your ladyfingers at the bottom of your trifle dish.

Pour your amaretto all over them until well soaked.

Cover the ladyfingers with a generous amount of jam.

 

Then a layer of the fruit and again, cover these with the remaining jam and sprinkle some sugar on top.

  Pour a generous amount of custard over the fruit.

 Top it up with the whipped cream and decorate as you like.

So there you go, the final product.

My friend's comments were very reassuring too. He said it was the first time he'd had a dessert in 4 years and really loved it! Well worth it in the end!!!!

                        Trifle