dailydelicious: Cherry Trifle: Cherry Cherry, you're my sweet cherry!

After I got the book ---------- I really wanted to try some recipes. It's a new book from my favorite food writer and I'm sure that the recipe will be great!.

Luckily while browsing through the pages my sister came home with a large box of cherries, and she told me that she wanted me to turn them into a dessert ^^. I felt lucky, haha, because there is a recipe in this book that I need a lot of cherries for it.

It's the Cherry Trifle, a cute dessert that's not hard to make. The bases of this dessert can be divided into 4 parts, first the sugared cherries, second the cake, third the syrup and the last one is whipped cream. The only thing that you will spend most of your time is the cake, the rest is only need a few minutes.
The cake is very aromatic (after reading the recipe I believe that when he says amazing, he must talk about the vanilla fragrance, haha), it contain 3 kinds of vanilla, the vanilla powder, the extract and the vanilla bean ^^. So, you can imagine that when baking this cake the sweet smell of vanilla will fill up your kitchen and beside of the smell, the taste is quite good.

The vanilla powder that I use is this one, it's the grounded bean that you can mix it into the dry ingredients. But if you don't have it, just skip this ingredient.

I made a bit of adjustment with the sugared cherries, because I think that a bit of tangy taste will make the dessert balance (otherwise the taste is quite flat).

It's a great prepared ahead dessert for the party too, you can bake cake the day before, then assemble it while making other dish because the dessert will taste better if you let it rest for 2 hours before serving.

You can make a big one (9-inch) or you can make into the small individual portion like mine.

Note: I made only half of the recipe ^^, but I think it's better to post the full recipe for you all.

Cherry Trifle

Make one 9-inch layered dessert

(if making an individual dessert it depends on the size of the glass that you use)

For the sugared cherries

2 pints ........................... cherries wash and pitted (about 4 cups)

2oz. ................................ superfine sugar

1tsp ............................... apple cider vinegar

1-2tbsp ......................... lemon juice

For Amazing vanilla cake

Dry ingredients

8oz. ............................... all purpose flour

1oz. ............................... potato starch

¼ tsp ........................... salt

1tbsp ............................ vanilla powder

Wet ingredients

4oz. ............................... unsalted butter

2tbsp ............................ rum

1tbsp ............................ vanilla extract

6 ................................... eggs, separated

12oz. ............................ superfine granulated sugar

...................................... Seed from ½ vanilla bean

For the sugar syrup

12oz. ............................. superfine granulated sugar

¾ cup ........................... water

For the whipped cream

3cups ............................ whipping or heavy cream

2oz. ............................... superfine granulated sugar

1tsp ............................... vanilla extract

Make the sugared cherries:

To make the sugared cherries, combine the ingredients in a large bowl and toss to blend.

Refrigerate for 2 hours, strain, and reserve the liquid.

While the cherries are chilling, make the Amazing vanilla cake.

Make the cake:

Preheat the oven to 325 °F and place the rack in the middle position. Line two 9-by-2-inch round cake pans with parchment.

Measure the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk to blend. Set aside.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter until it is browned, then remove from the heat. Stir in the rum and vanilla and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the wire whip attachment, beat the egg whites on high speed until fluffy, about 1 minutes. Slowly pour 2 oz. of the sugar into the whites and whip for another 20 seconds.

In the mixer bowl, beat the egg yolks, vanilla seeds and remaining 10 oz. of sugar until the mixture is pale yellow.

Reduce the speed of the wire whip to slow, and add the dry ingredients to the mixer in three portions.

Stop the mixer and fold in the meringue with a flexible spatula, followed by the browned butter mixture.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans.

Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in the pans. Use a offset spatula to release the cakes if they stick to the sides when you invert the pans.

To make the sugar syrup, combine the sugar and water in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is dissolved. Remove and let cool.

When the sugared cherries, the cake, and the sugar syrup are ready to use, wash and dry a deep glass trifle bowl.

Make the whipped cream:

To make the whipped cream, bring the ingredients to a soft peak using a standing mixer fitted with a wire whip attachment or hand beaters. Stop the mixer and whip by hand with a balloon whisk until the cream shows a slightly thick body. It should not be at all stiff.

Assemble the dessert:

Slice the cakes horizontally with serrated knife, and place one layer in the bottom of the bowl (I made an individual portion, so I cut the cake into small round; the same size of the glass) using a pastry brush or squeeze bottle, soak the layer with about one quarter of the sugar syrup and quarter of the reserved liquid from the sugared cherries.

Spoon a generous amount of whipped cream onto the first layer and level it with a ladle or spoon. Place the sugared cherries into the glass, repeat with cake and cream (if you make the big one, you will use 3 layers of cake, 2 layers of sugared cherries with whipped cream), then decorated with the sugared cherries.

Refrigerate for 2 hours before serving