Remember how passionate I was about my Passion Fruit Curd? Well now I’ve elevated that to an even higher realm of the sublime.
I have to say that this dessert is one of my Greatest Hits of all time !!
It came across my radar originally when I styled a segment for Univision TV, with California Strawberries. I made their layered dessert that I believed had whipped cream, crushed shortbread cookies, and strawberries.
Then, I took that idea to Guadalajara, Mexico, when I was asked to teach a Hollywood-inspired cooking class to 60 students at a premier culinary academy in town, just after the Oscars in early 2016.
The Oscars Governors Ball had featured a dessert with Belgium’s Speculoos cookies so I just took that ingredient and plugged it in instead of shortbread. That, and my having styled this kind of thing for Latin TV, was going to have to do for the Hollywood inspiration!
I taught my gorgeous class how to make Lemon Curd, and we layered the dessert with lemon curd, whipped cream, fresh berries, and Speculoos cookie crumbs.
The students had a field day designing and styling it with such grace and panache! The entire experience was like heaven being brought down to earth (see some of my cherished students in the foto below).
Now, with my Passion Fruit Curd just having met Mascarpone cheese for my sister Lisa’s birthday cake in September, I had a new sensation to do this once again.
See how you like it. I dare you to not share this with a small crowd and finish it in one sitting.
PS – I call it Trifle-y because it looks beautiful in my Trifle bowl, which I never use!
Passion Fruit Trifle-y Dessert
1 recipe Passion Fruit Curd
8 oz. Mascarpone cheese
8 oz. heavy whipping cream
1 Tbs pure vanilla extract
2 Tbs powdered sugar
1 box Speculoos cookies
3 cups fresh berries / fruit (cut in cubes)
In a deep dish or bowl (preferably glass), you will be placing 2 or 3 layers of each of the following components (in bold):
- Combined fruit curd and mascarpone cheese. Mix the two thoroughly and gently in large bowl to prepare.
- Mildly sweet whipped cream. With stand or hand mixer, whip cream to stiff peaks. Gently stir in vanilla and powdered sugar to yield mildly sweet flavor.
- Speculoos cookie crumbs. Place all Speculoos cookies in large zipper bag, pound with meat mallet or side of rolling pin until mostly crushed. They don’t have to be finely crushed, when you’re done, they’re ready.
- Fresh berries / fruit.
Simply do this any way you’d like. You can see in the foto that mine is not in perfectly measured layers.
The flavors are going to blow your mind, you so don’t need it to be perfect!
Notes:
- Use any variation of fruit curd that you’d like. Any and all will be fine for this!
- Mascarpone cheese may be found in fine grocers, and Trader Joe’s. If you can’t find it, regular cream cheese will do, just let it soften before folding into the fruit curd.
- Speculoos cookies are cinnamon wafer-like cookies that are so special, you’ll be tempted to buy 2 boxes and keep one for snacking. They are sold at international grocers, and Trader Joe’s as well. If you don’t find them, crunchy ginger snaps are a good substitute.
- The dessert in my foto was made with fresh raspberries and white nectarine cubes. Use any fruit that you love, any combination will be just right.
Yields 6-8 servings.
