Accidental Berry Trifle

I had decided to make a light and fruity cake, and finally settled on the Mixed Berry Cake with Vanilla Bean Syrup from Women's Weekly Bake book. This meant I got to use some of the fragrant vanilla beans I had.

The cake was easy to make and tasted great too, being extremely light and soft. That's where the problem lied. I made two cakes, one in a Bundt tin to get a nice shape. However, I hadn't greased the Bundt tin enough, and when I went to turn it out, half the cake flopped out while the other half stayed in the tin. A moment of panic rushed through me, before my instincts snapped into action and I immediately thought of Nigella Lawson and how she always say that "No problem cannot be solved with trifle." In my case, this was figuratively and literally true. So I rummaged through the fridge, got some cream and more fruit and voila, I had made a wonderful luscious Berry Trifle.

Here's what the cake should look like.


The bruised and torn apart cake.


Turned into a wonderful berry trifle, which actually tasted even better than just the cake itself. Accidents can produce some wonderful things sometimes.


Accidental Berry Trifle
Adapted from Women's Weekly Bake

INGREDIENTS
125g butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 self raising flour
1/2 almond meal
1/3 sour cream
1 1/2 cups frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup drained canned seeded black cherries
1 1/2 cups of whipping cream
100g mixed berries for trifle topping

Vanilla Bean Syrup
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 vanilla beans

METHOD
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease 20cm pan well.

2. Beat butter and sugar in small bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time.

3. Stir in sifted flours, almond meal, sour cream, berries and cherries. Pour mixture into pan.

4. Bake for 40 minutes or until an inserted wooden skewer comes out clean. Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto rack over tray.

5. Make vanilla bean syrup and pour hot syrup over hot cake.

Vanilla Bean Syrup
1. Place water and sugar in small saucepan. Split vanilla beans and scrape out seeds. Add both seeds and pods into pan. Stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Simmer, uncovered, without stirring, 5 minutes. Discard pods.

ASSEMBLING
1. Place pieces of cake into the bottom of a large bowl.

2. Whip some cream with a bit of sugar to soft peaks. Place cream all over cake.

3. Scatter berries over top of cream.

4. Freeze a few hours for everything to hold it's shape.