I have been unexpectedly turned into the host of a 4th of July party, which is fine but a bit short notice as I tend to start the menu planning / shopping / sous-chef prep a week or two in advance, and yet here we are, only 4 days away from the party, so I’m just now turning my attention to my culinary obligations, which include dessert.
Did someone say dessert? I have about 1/2 of a competently made, yet ultimately uninspiring, bundt cake I made yesterday. Its flavor comes from apple butter, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a dash of cloves. Upon tasting it, my tongue basically said, “yeah, this is good … texture is right, flavor is fine, but … ho hum, I’m bored. An average spice cake, nothing special. Why bother?”
I’m thinking maybe … use this cake as the base for a 4th of July trifle? Layer it with fresh banana, blueberries and strawberry slices, a nice sweet cream, and plenty of sherry or rum to moisten the cake (which is wonderfully moist today, but will be getting a bit stale by the 4th).
Ideas and suggestions as to how/why I should or should not do this are welcome.
Couldn’t be better! With maybe some more fresh fruit on the side.
I always like to do some variant of the traditional Fourth of July salmon and peas for party fare. A cooked salmon salad is an intriguing variation on tuna salad, and goes well with a German potato salad (oil and vinegar dressing, no mayo) for the traditional new potatoes accompaniment.
I haven’t done this before, but for the annual family BBQ this year I’ll be bringing Jell-O shots. Red white and blue ones in the shape of the American flag.
I used to make Jell-O shots for the annual company Christmas party and they were a hit. The first time I made them it was because my dad needed to dump off a bunch of alcohol that he didn’t need or want. We’re not big drinkers so they sat in my cupboards for awhile and I wanted to get rid of them. So I made Jell-O shots one year.
I’d never before made them so I just winged it. If standard Jell-O instructions calls for X amount of water, then I used ½X alcohol and ½X water. My local Smart-n-Final sells 1oz and 2oz plastic soufflé cups with covers, and I used those.
They’re easy to transport so I put them into a paper bag and brought them to work. Chilled and covered (each individual soufflé cup has a snap on cover), of course.
They were a big hit in the office! People loved them and every year after that they wanted (nay, Expected) me to bring them.
The only improvement I’ve done is that after they are chilled and before I snap the little plastic covers onto each soufflé cup, I took a toothpick and used that to separate the sides of the Jell-O from the inner sides of each soufflé cup — to make them easier to shoot them into your mouth.
So, yeah, Jell-O shots this year. Jell-O Is always a fun food!
Isn’t trifle an English dish?
So, triflin’ really! 
That sounds like a great dessert to me, @CairoCarol .
Do eeeet!
Sounds like a great idea to me. Maybe stick a sparkler in it and light just before serving!
Though, depending on how much rum you’ve moistened the cake with, that may not be advisable… 
Hey, just like the language we speak, we took it from our Colonial oppressors and made it American-style. Don’t trifle with us!
I feel like if I had spice cake I wanted to use up, I’d use apples as the fruit and pudding (vanilla or butterscotch) instead of cream, with calvados or another brandy as the liquor. Kind of a play on apple pie, though that messes up the red white and blue thing you’ve got going on. Peaches might be nice too, with Southern Comfort as the liquor.
I’m going to do something sort of like that - I make a banana-yogurt pudding that is delicious (and uses up all the bananas we still have in the freezer from when our banana “trees”* went nuts) which I’ll use instead of a standard trifle cream.
Hah - good thinking. Since I’m going with the bananas, I’ll see if the Dekuyper creme de banana liqueur we have makes a good addition. (Or it might be a little too strong, I’m not sure - I’m going to cut up and freeze the cake today; I’ll test a sprinkle on a small piece to see).
Arggh! Y’know, that is one of the few fruits we lack in Hawai’i. Seems like we either grow many delicious things, or they are shipped in, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen good peaches, apricots or plums.
(*I put “trees” in quotes because actually bananas aren’t trees, they’re stalks like grass, so saying “trees” sounds weird to me even though that’s what most people unfamiliar with banana plants would say. Your trivia fact for the day!)
Yeah, good fresh peaches are hard to get even here in NC. They tend to get picked too early and then they don’t ripen properly. Frozen ones are often better!
There’s a guy that comes to our local farmer’s market from SC every year for a few weeks with fresh peaches - there’s a huge line there every time.
That’s not a bad idea, actually, as a back-up in case the strawberries and blueberries don’t work out. (Delete boring explanation here) so it might be tricky getting high quality blueberries and strawberries.
Oh, but pudding shots are soooo much better!
When I make trifle at Christmas time, I bake pound cake following the recipe in The Moosewood Cookbook, with lots and lots of butter.
The pound cake serves as the foundation of the trifle. And while I love brandy, whiskey, and other alcoholic beverages, I make mine using jam (peach or peach-passion fruit, if you can find it). Layer it in with peach juice (just enough to moisten the cake), and smother everything with real whipped cream.
It may not be traditional, but I have never had any complaints. Substitute fresh fruit for the jam and add an alcoholic beverage, if you wish. It’s up to you.