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Vanilla Trifle with Blueberries, Chocolate Cake and Vodka

Trifle is one of those “show-off” desserts that are really easy to put together but taste amazing and impress almost anyone. I threw this together as dessert for our Christmas dinner. If you can, try to make it at least a few hours before you are ready to serve it to let the cake soak up the fruit juices and alcohol.

By tastykitchen · From Open Recipes · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 10,018 recipes mention both. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 8
Prep20 min

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Cut the whole chocolate cake into bite-sized cubes and spread about half of them evenly over the bottom of a large glass trifle bowl.

  2. Drizzle the whipped cream flavoured vodka evenly over the cake cubes so they soak it up.

  3. Spoon the vanilla custard over the cake layer and smooth it level.

  4. Scatter half of the blueberries over the custard.

  5. In a chilled bowl, whip the heavy cream with the vanilla sugar until soft peaks form.

  6. Spread half of the whipped cream over the blueberries, then add the remaining chocolate cake cubes on top.

  7. Layer the rest of the custard over the cake, then the remaining blueberries.

  8. Finish with the remaining whipped cream, cover, and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.

By tastykitchen. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Chocolate + vanillatop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together10,018 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together35,031 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Chocolate + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together5,463 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Cream + sugartop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cream + vodkatop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together202 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Vanilla and sugar share little aroma chemistry, yet 35,031 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs