Chocolate Orange Brownie Trifle: A Christmas Day Showstopper!

We spent Christmas day at my in laws this year, and I was tasked with the Christmas day dessert.  I spent months planning what I was going to make, and changed my mind a million times in between! In my mind a Christmas dessert should always involve peppermint, but since it gives my husband insane heartburn that was off the table! So then we came up with the idea of chocolate orange...I'm not really a fan of orange flavoured desserts - you won't have seen anything on my blog featuring orange before for this reason! so it's slightly ironic that this dessert turned into the craziest orange overload ever!!  In my mind it's also not Christmas without a trifle, but I don't like custard and knew I didn't want to make a boring old traditional trifle so a brownie trifle with mousse layers seemed like a great alternative! and before I knew it, this 9 layer beast had been dreamt up in my head!

I knew it needed to look impressive sitting on the table (that's how I imagined I'd serve it...as it turned out I served it straight from the fridge and dished it up into bowls whilst everyone was in a different room so no one saw it anyway!!) but it made me happy at least that it looked pretty in the bowl! I had planned to do Christmas tree shaped brownies around the inside of the bowl, but my Christmas tree cutter was larger than I had remembered it being! so I settled on stars...which are still slightly festive! Luckily they were so moist they just stuck to the side of the bowl all by themselves! and then the subsequent layers that I filled the bowl with held them in place! 

Layers of brownie chunks started off the fun...followed by a nice thick layer of milk chocolate orange mousse, and then a layer of chopped up Terry's chocolate orange pieces...

Followed by another generous layer of brownie chunks, these were level with the brownie stars around the bowl too.  This was topped with a generous layer of white chocolate orange mousse...

followed by, you've guessed it, more Terry's chocolate orange pieces!

 Some piped on whipped double cream brought everything together, and I used mini Terry's chocolate orange pieces to decorated, and crumblings of flake too...because it's not a trifle unless it's been crumbled with flake - fact!

There were a lot of components but all were pretty straightforward and it came together quicker than expected.  I used the amazing Ghirardelli brownie box mix from Costco because when it's 8pm on Christmas Eve and you haven't started on dessert yet, you need to cut some corners! but if you had more time than me you could obviously make your own brownies! I also used shortcut mousse recipes, that didn't require egg, because I didn't have time for things to go wrong so a cream cheese no fail mousse was the way forward! 

Although you'd think it would be too much orange in one dessert, it was perfectly balanced by the creaminess of the mousse layers, and the richness of the chocolate brownie and the tang from the cream on top helped to break through the sweetness - I wanted another helping immediately after eating my first! which for an orange hater shows just how yummy this dessert really was! 

 

Chocolate Orange Brownie Trifle:

Serves 15-20

From Cupcake Crazy Gem

2 pans of chocolate fudge brownies (8x8 size and 9x13) 

I used Ghirardelli Brownie mix - you could make your own from scratch

Milk Chocolate Orange Mousse:

125g milk chocolate

100g dark chocolate

225g cream cheese 

110g cup caster sugar

1 tbsp orange juice

1 orange (zest)

250ml double cream, whipped

White Chocolate Orange Mousse:

225g white chocolate

225g cream cheese 

110g cup caster sugar

1 tbsp orange juice

1 orange (zest)

250ml double cream, whipped

2 Terry's chocolate oranges

350ml double cream

2 bags of Terry's chocolate orange mini pieces

1 cadbury's flake

Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.

Prepare a double mix of brownies.  Line your brownie pans with greaseproof paper.

I spread the brownie mix thinly in the larger 9x13" pan and left it thicker in the 8x8" pan.  Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes, the thinner brownies will require less baking time.  

Let cool. 

Lift out the greaseproof paper from the 9x13" pan and using a star cutter cut out 12 stars.

Lift out the greaseproof paper from the 8x8 pan and cut brownies into cubes.

Press your brownie stars around the inside of the trifle bowl.  Fill bottom layer of trifle bowl with packed together brownie cubes, set the rest aside for later.

Whisk 500ml double cream using a stand mixer. Once soft peaks start to form it is done.  Transfer it to a bowl, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate until needed.

Meanwhile chop the milk and dark chocolate into small pieces and melt in a heatproof bowl, set above a pan of boiling water.  Set aside to cool.

Beat the cream cheese, caster sugar, orange juice and orange zest together until light and fluffy.  Fold in the cooled chocolate, and fold in half of the whipped cream from the bowl in the fridge.  Your milk chocolate mousse is finished.

Spread over the layer of brownie chunks in the trifle bowl.

Chop Terry's chocolate orange pieces using a knife, and spread a layer of them over the chocolate mousse.  Add another layer of brownie chunks.  

Now it's time to prepare the white chocolate mousse using the same method as before.  Chop the white chocolate into small pieces and melt in a heatproof bowl set above a pan of boiling water.  Set aside to cool.

Beat the cream cheese, caster sugar, orange juice and orange zest together until light and fluffy.  Fold in the cooled chocolate, and fold in the rest of the whipped cream from the bowl in the fridge.

Spread your white chocolate orange mousse over the brownie chunk layer in the trifle bowl.

Sprinkle over more Terry's chocolate orange pieces.  

Whisk 350ml double cream in a stand mixer until stiff peaks form.  Transfer into a piping bag and using a star tip pipe small little stars all over the top of the trifle.  Crush a cadbury's flake and sprinkle the pieces over the cream.  

Arrange the mini Terry's chocolate orange pieces so that they overlap slightly over one another in a circular pattern around the edge of the cream, and do a smaller circle in the middle of the bowl too.

Refrigerate the trifle until it is ready to be served.

Eat and enjoy! 

FYI: The ingredients listed are enough to make two bowls of trifle.  I made a slightly smaller bowl alongside the main trifle bowl (without the star brownie shapes around the edge) and so if you only want one trifle you could halve the mousse quantities but would still need two pans of brownie if you plan on doing the star shapes.  

It's Cupcake O'Clock! Pimm's Cupcakes

This may or may not be the craziest frosting ever...certainly the craziest one I have ever made.  It is made up of four individual flavoured frostings, and so layering the piping bag is quite a feat in itself! Now bear with me while I tell you what the four flavours are; strawberry - yum! orange - not my favourite but I can bear with it! mint - we're getting a little bit out there now and wait for it ... cucumber! yes, cucumber frosting! I know what you're thinking - yuck! and that is what I was thinking too! but in a very weird way they just all work together.  I suppose it's the same way they all work in the actual Pimm's drink too, complimenting one another perfectly (or so I hear since I don't drink alcohol myself!).



So these cupcakes were the result of the baking day I had with some of my friends from uni months back that I've been telling you about for a while! They found and came up with the great idea to make Pimm's cupcakes! Well I think it was Katy's idea because our Irish friend Sarah had never heard of or tried Pimm's before and Katy thought that was a bit of a travesty that needed to be rectified! We kept a small portion of the batter back and made them just plain vanilla so that I could get to taste some of the deliciousness too! So if you don't like/drink alcohol you could do the same if you wanted to replicate these little beauties.



I've been waiting for so long to blog these because I wanted to post them when I felt like summer had officially arrived! Well it hasn't reached over 10 degrees at any point this past week here in Wales and there's been rain every day, I'm still wearing a coat so unfortunately summer definitely isn't here...but with the way things are going I don't know if it's ever planning to show it's face around here and these cupcakes were too cool not to be showcased so I caved.

I also felt like they would make a pretty fun bake for anyone celebrating the upcoming Queen's Jubilee since of course Pimm's is so quintessentially English! So I'm entering them into The Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition that is being run by Homemade By Fleur for a chance to win £100 of Amazon vouchers which are being provided by Appliances Online - just think of all the baking books you could buy with that prize! I'm excited with just the thought of it!

The girls especially loved getting stuck in to my massive box of sprinkles for decoration purposes! and we declared our baking day of fun a massive success.  I was definitely glad I had two helpers to bake up these cupcakes because I have a feeling by yourself making the four frostings would be a little time consuming but definitely worth it.  Don't skip out on any of the flavours, like cucumber, even though it seems odd I promise you it works! 

Pimm's Cupcakes:

Makes 24

From Good Food

250g golden caster sugar

250g margarine

250g self-raising flour

4 eggs, at room temperature

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla bean paste or 2 tsp vanilla extract

120ml Pimm's

For the frosting:

800g icing sugar

500g butter

Strawberry: 16 Strawberries & 2 tbsp caster sugar

Cucumber: 60g cucumber, seeds removed & a drop of green food colouring

Orange: 1 orange, juice only & a drop of orange food colouring

Mint: 16 fresh mint leaves

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.  Line your baking tins with cupcake cases.

Whisk the eggs and sugar for at least 4 minutes with the whisk attachment of a free standing mixer and beat the air into the mix so it fluffs up.

Sieve the flour and baking powder and add it to the mixture a little at a time, alternating with chunks of butter, whisking the mixture each time to ensure a smooth texture.  When completely combined, mix in the vanilla and the Pimm's.

Fill the cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake for 15-20 minutes until they feel spongy and the tops have got some colour.

Leave in pans for 5 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

While they are in the oven, make a start on the frostings.

Mix up the icing sugar and butter to start with in a free standing mixer, do it in half batches so as not to completely cover your kitchen in icing sugar.  Once they are combined, mix for 5 minutes until light and fluffy.

Divide the frosting into four separate bowls.

Strawberry: Roughly chop the strawberries and put them in a pan along with the sugar stirring constantly. Once softened, mash gently with the back of a spoon and leave to soften a little more (about 2 minutes).  Pass the mixture through a sieve to remove the seeds.  Leave the mixture to cool, then mix into one portion of the frosting. (This made slightly more strawberry than was needed, so just add a little at a time until it gets to a stiff consistency...if you add it all the icing will be too runny to pipe).

Cucumber: Cut the skin off the cucumber, chop it into very fine pieces and mix into one portion of the frosting.  Add a small amount of green, keep it quite pale.  

Orange: Blend the juice and zest into one portion of the frosting, again go easy as adding too much depending on the size of the orange you juice may make it too runny.  Add a small amount of orange food colouring to give it a pale orange colour.

Mint: Chop very finely and add to the frosting.  You can add green colouring if you want but we opted to keep ours the natural green that the mint leaves had made it.

To pipe: Place a large piping bag with an open star nozzle in a tall glass, spreading the top of the bag over the top of the glass.  Using a teaspoon, take a scoop of one of the frostings and gently push it down one side of the piping bag.  Repeating with the other 3 frostings until you have filled the bottom of the piping bag and the frosting is divided into quarters.  You can then use tablespoons to fill the rest of the piping bag with the rows of frostings.  Squeeze any air out of the bag and frost a little onto a piece of parchment paper first until all 4 colours start to swirl together.  Pipe your swirls on your cupcakes.

Finish with fresh slices of orange, cucumber, mint or strawberry or just for fun - with some sprinkles! 

Eat and enjoy!