Strawberry Banana Trifle

I made this lovely trifle a few weeks ago for our family's Mothers' day lunch at my Auntie Donna's house. I made it partly because I had some cake in my freezer that I wanted to use up, but that cake just became a fabulous excuse to make one of my favourite desserts which I hadn't made for years, trifle. 

Trifle is simple to make, yet delicious and impressive. It is a perfect way to use up miscellaneous sweet things in your fridge and pantry, because it has the ability to breathe new life into the simplest of ingredients from whipped cream and strawberries to stale cake. 

For Mothers' Day I made a very large recipe - the one pictured above and written below - because I knew we would have a large party, and did not want to have too little. However, I soon realized that a little trifle goes a long way, so I would recommend making a half recipe of what I describe, or only assembling half portions of the ingredients, because trifle is best eaten fresh. If you want to have some one day and some the next, you could leave half portions of the trifle components in the fridge in separate containers, and assemble a second trifle separately when you are ready to eat trifle again.







Strawberry Banana Trifle (serves 20-30 people)
Ingredients:

• 1 small spiced apple walnut cake
• Half batch of the above recipe (link), dried out a little, cut into cubes, and drizzled with 1/4 cup whisky and 1/8 cup maple syrup
• 1 recipe homemade vanilla pudding 
• I used the Martha Stewart recipe I linked to, but with a little extra vanilla.
• 1 cup heavy cream, whipped with one packet "whip it" to keep it stiff
• 1/2 kg strawberries, sliced
• 2 bananas, sliced

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, layer the ingredients, making at least two layers of each ingredient; start with the cake and end with the cream and strawberries. 
2. Let the trifle chill in the fridge until you are ready to serve it, but ensure you don't assemble your trifle more than a few hours before you plan to serve it. Trifle is best served almost immediately after it is assembled, so the cake and bananas remain fresh.
3. Basically, that's it. Enjoy your trifle! This is a perfect way to use up stale cake, or cake you don't wish to eat on it's own. It is a simple, yet very classy dessert!