Holiday Gingerbread Trifle (Irish Recipe) - Gemma's Bigger Bolder Baking Ep. 41

Hi Bold Bakers! I am so excited that the holiday season is here because it is my favorite time of year. This week I am sharing with you a big and bold twist on a holiday trifle using my favorite Irish gingerbread recipe. Also, today I am airing another episode of my Chocolicious series over on the Kin Community channel. Make sure you stay around to check that out. So let's get baking. We're going to start out by making the gingerbread. Now a few of you have very kindly asked me to show you how to make more traditional Irish recipes. And it doesn't get more traditional than this. This is a recipe that I've used for over 10 years. It's my absolute favorite. This little book is my go-to for Irish recipes and it's by a lady called Biddy White Lennon. I've had it for a very long time as you can tell by the color of it and the dog ears and the fact that there's cake batter in there. So in a large bowl, we're going to mix our dry ingredients. Our flour. Ground ginger, which is a very important ingredient in gingerbread. Ground cinnamon for more great flavor and warmth. And always, salt. Now simply whisk these together until well combined. Now for the rest of the recipe, we're going to head over to the stove. In a heavy bottom saucepan, we're going to add in our butter, molasses or treacle, and dark brown sugar. Now you want to heat these over a very low heat until the sugar dissolves. You don't want to let it get too hot. We're going to turn off the heat now, let it sit, cool down a little bit before we add in the rest of the ingredients. Now that the molasses mix has cooled, we can add in the eggs. Pour in your mixed eggs and then whisk together nice and fast so they don't cook on the mix. Once the eggs are in, we're going to whisk in the flour-spice mix. Normally you wouldn't see me whisking flour to a batter but it's important for this recipe because if you don't, you could end up with lumps because it's actually a really kind of a thin batter. Our last step for the gingerbread is adding in the warm milk and baking soda. You add in the baking soda, which is the raising agent, into the milk. So we're going to pour this quickly into our other mix. I'm not one for unnecessary steps and I know heating up the milk and adding in the baking soda seems like something unnecessary but I've done it for 10 years. It worked. Biddy told me to do it so I did it. Now this is what your gingerbread should look like. It's not super thick, it's kind of runny and it makes beautiful gingerbread. So let's get it into the tins and into the oven. Now simply pour your gingerbread into two loaf tins that are lined with parchment paper. So if you see all of these bubbles, this is the baking soda activated. That's why you want to move kind of fast and get them into the oven because you want to capture all of those bubbles while it's in the oven baking. We're going to bake the gingerbread at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. Once that time is up, we're going to take them out, cover them with tinfoil, and put them back in for another 15 and they're going to kind of steam and create a beautiful sticky layer that you get on the top. For more great holiday recipes, you'll want to check out my Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Brownie over on the Kin Community channel and also don't forget to subscribe to my channel. The next layer in our trifle is a cream cheese and orange filling and it goes really well with the gingerbread and with the cranberries that we're going to do next. In a stand mixer or a hand mixer, whisk your cream cheese until nice and soft. It's always best using room temperature cream cheese. It makes it much easier. To your cream cheese, add in your sugar, orange zest, the juice of the same orange, and lastly add your cream. Then turn your machine on to medium speed and continue whisking. As you can see, it's much thicker now because the whipped cream has whipped in there and you've got this beautiful thick consistency. Now make sure you taste it. Mmm, so good. The third layer in our trifle is going to be a cranberry sauce. Now there's nothing that says holidays like cranberries. In a heavy bottom saucepan over low heat, we're going to add in our cranberries, water, sugar, because as beautiful as cranberries are, they do tend to be a little bit on the tart side. Some lovely orange zest to add that nice citrus flavor to the cranberries. And for extra punch, we're going to add in some fresh orange juice. You want to cook your cranberry sauce for around 8-10 minutes until the sugar has dissolved, all the cranberries start to pop, and you see all the beautiful color coming out in them. So we're going to set this aside, let it go cold, and then we can start assembling our trifle. So a lot of you have asked for a question and answer video, so next Thursday you're going to get one. But let me know what questions you have in the comments below, like where am I from in Ireland, where did I go to school, what's my favorite candy bar, if I'm a dog or a When your gingerbread is ready, we can cube it and get it ready for our trifle. When you're storing it, keep it in parchment paper. It just keeps it nice and moist. This layer on top is exactly what you want from a gingerbread. It's sticky, it's moist, it's kind of molasses-y. So to use this for the trifle, I'm going to cut it into little cubes. Now my favorite part of all the desserts, apart from the eating, is the assembly. In the bottom of my trifle dish, I'm going to do a nice generous layer of gingerbread. Okay, let's speed things up because we've got a lot of layers to do. For the next layer, I'm going to go in with my beautiful cream cheese-y orange filling. Do not be shy with this, it's one of the best parts, I think. And then spread it all the way around to the sides and get it in all the nooks and crannies. Top off that with your cranberry sauce layer. And spread it evenly all the way around. Look at this beautiful color with the cream cheese and the gingerbread. And of course, this is a big and bold trifle, so we are going again with all the layers. Another layer of your orange cream cheese filling. Then top it off with some cranberry sauce, a few pieces of gingerbread, and some fresh orange zest. And there you have it. A big and bold trifle for any holiday occasion. If you don't want to make a big giant trifle, you can always make individual ones in ice cream bowls or even in mason jars. This is so good. You guys are going to love this. I really hope you enjoyed my gingerbread trifle. Don't forget to check out my Triple Chocolate Pumpkin Brownie over on the King Community channel. Don't forget to subscribe and I'll see you back here again next Thursday for more Bigger Bolder Baking.