Wine Poached Fruit and Spiced Brioche Trifle - SORTEDfood recipe

For the brioche: Tip the flour, yeast, sugar, salt and spices into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle. Turn on to low speed and slowly pour in the beaten eggs. Turn up to medium speed and mix for another 5 minutes until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.
Add the butter and continue to mix until evenly incorporated.

Grease and flour a loaf tin while this is happening. Remove the dough from the machine, transfer to a lightly floured surface and shape into a loaf/oblong. Place into the prepared tin, cover with cling film and let the dough rest in a warm place for 45 mins or until doubled in size. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Once proved. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Once baked, remove the loaf from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

For the pastry cream : Pour the milk into a medium saucepan. Slice the vanilla pod down the middle lengthwise, scrape the seeds and add them to the pan with the pod. Bring to almost boiling over a medium heat, stirring to make sure that it doesn’t burn.

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, flour and cornflour in a large mixing bowl. Carefully pick out the vanilla pod from the hot milk and pour the milk gradually into the egg mixture, whisking while you pour. Return to the saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the mixture thickens.

Remove from the heat, beat in the praline paste. Transfer to a shallow metal tray and cover the surface of the mix with cling film to prevent a skin forming. Leave to cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Whip the crème fraîche, double cream and 30g of sugar together until soft peaks and store in the fridge. 

For the poached fruit: In a large saucepan on a high heat, bring the red wine to the boil for approximately 1 minute. Add the sugar, water, spices, bay leaves and orange and heat to a boil. Add the pear and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the figs and continue to simmer for 2 minutes. Add the grapes, remove from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

For the jelly: Bloom the gelatine in cold water for 5 minutes. Strain the fruit from its poaching liquid and measure 300ml into a saucepan. Reduce the remaining poaching liquid to a syrup in another saucepan. Gently warm the measured out liquid. Squeeze out the excess water from the gelatine and then whisk it into the warm liquid until everything is dissolved. Cool, then chill over an ice bath until on the point of almost setting. Remove the spices from the poached fruit.

To assemble the trifle: In four glasses, layer as follows: sliced brioche, red wine syrup, poached fruit, pastry cream and nearly set/thickened jelly. Place into the freezer for 10 minutes to set.

To finish: Top the set jelly with the whipped crème fraîche, smashed chocolates and chopped hazelnuts