raspberries, gingerbread & vanilla pudding trifle

Let’s be honest, there are times when cooking (or healthy cooking as you wish) stays on the sidelines. And in my case it’s a heatwave. As soon as temperatures of 25°C hits the Scottish coast, it’s not the time to sit in the kitchen more than it’s absolutely necessary 🙂 When the heatwave hits the coast I take advantage of every opportunity to enjoy the sunshine. Even if it’s only sitting at home with my windows wide open, like right now. It might seem a bit mad how excited I am about any manifestation of real Summer, but it’s so nice to feel the sun literally burning my face, and warm breeze (finally!) that make you feel like you’ve just opened the oven (and not the freezer, as usual). Even though it’s only slightly over 20°C it feels like around 30°C. You can’t imagine how happy I’m when it’s almost 8pm and my thermometer shows 22°C, I can hear the birds singing outside and feel the gentle breeze while I’m sitting at my laptop.

OK, lets get to the point. The point is that simply enjoying your life is as important as trying to keep yourself strong and healthy. And now I turn to all those who, like I do, sometimes feel guilty that on a hot Summer day you’ve eaten whole tub of ice cream, dessert sweet as hell or a cheat-snack sitting on the beach or in a sunny cafe in the park. Celebrate small things because all that small things makes your life happy. And this “trifle” is one of the small things that will let you enjoy your Summer, even if it’s not as sunny and hot as you wish (or it’s sunny and hot but you hate it).

It’s a bit cheated trifle, because it has no sponge cake, alcohol or jelly in it. But it’s the quickest trifle you can make. It’s a mix of Summer and Winter flavours – I love the spiciness of ginger, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg combined with fresh and juicy raspberries. Creamy vanilla pudding let the flavours melts together in a sweet and spicy harmony.

I used Polish gingerbreads – soft and moist, but I guess wherever you are, there’s some kind of gingerbread version. Like lebkuchen in Germany pepperkaker in Norway, Danish brunkager or Romanian turtă dulce. Every country has their own traditional gingerbread thing, so feel free to use what you have available. It can be either biscuits, cookies or cake – anything that has lots of spices.

It’s the same with vanilla pudding – milk, cream, egg yolk or starch based creamy goodness – custard, curd, thick pastry cream usually served hot or cold. In my case, again Polish vanilla pudding based on milk and potato starch.

Raspberries – I recommend fresh ones – frozen won’t look appetizing and combined with rest ingredients will make weird, soggy mixture.

Dessert is extremely easy and quick to prepare, won’t take your valuable time you can spend with your family and friends, or just enjoying your own company with raspberries, gingerbread & vanilla pudding trifle in your hand. There’s no need to make a party to enjoy the party food, don’t you think? This trifle though will be another great quick party dessert you’ll make in minutes. Scroll down to see the instructions, although I feel like photos are self explanatory.

I hope you already feel inspired with this “recipe”, not only to make something tasty for yourself but also to find joy in small things – like sudden heatwave 😉 Because we don’t need much to have a lot.