A wonderful desert for a crowd that you can put together ahead of time.
Rectangular glass dish : 16″ x 8″ x 3.5″ deep
Serves : 12 – 15
Ingredients:
- Vanilla Custard – made with 1 litre of milk and 60 – 70 grams of vanilla custard powder
- Fruit cocktail – 400-500 grams, drain and reserve liquid from the tin
- Fresh Pears – 3, chopped into cubes
- Fresh Pineapple – 4 thick slices, chopped
- Fresh Apples – 2, skinned, cored and chopped
- Bananas – 2, sliced into fairly thick rounds.
- Plain Sponge cake – about 500 grams, cut into ¼” thick slices
- Syrup to drench the cake – ½ cup Brandy + ½ cup reserved liquid from the cocktail tin
- *Strawberry compote – about 2 cups
- Mildly sweetened Whipped cream – 2 cups
Method:
- To the base of the serving dish add ½ cup of the Syrup.
- Place a layer of sliced cake, drench the top of the cake with some more syrup and top up with a layer of strawberry jam.
- Follow up with another layer of sliced cake and drench the same with the rest of the syrup.
- Cover the glass dish with shrink wrap and refrigerate overnight or for about 3 hours allowing all syrup and strawberry jam to soak and infuse.
- Mix the drained fruit from the cocktail tin with all the fresh fruit and scatter on top of the drenched cake layer.
- Top up with prepared custard and cover with shrink wrap. Refrigerate until the custard sets.
- Pipe the whipped cream on top of the set custard.
- Serve cold.
Notes:
- Substitutes for:
- Brandy – Sherry, Port wine. You can also use a mix of orange juice and liquid from the cocktail tin.
- *Strawberry compote – To a saucepan on medium heat add 400 grams of strawberries chopped in halves, 4 tablespoons of sugar and a squirt of orange juice or any other citrus juice of your choice. Cook stirring every once in a while until the syrup thickens and the fruit is cooked but not squished completely. You should still have some whole fruit bits.
- When using fresh fruit use more crunchy fruit like apples, pears, pineapples and fewer pieces of squishy fruit like banana and papaya. Fresh berries and grapes make a delicious addition, so when in season definitely add those.
- I chop fruit into no less than ¾” pieces. You want the fruit bits to remain whole and not turn into mush, especially fruits like banana.