Orange delight

Yesterday was the monthly 'I cook for Gran' Saturday.... since our mother in law lives in our street we have fallen into a rythm of doing shopping on Saturday morning and then having lunch at Johns mums place who lives in our street. Very nice actually because she is a very good cook (even thogh she doesn't think so herself) and it is fantastic to be cooked for especially since she makes these 'old fashioned' dishes like kedgeree and shepherds pie and desserts like steamed pudding. Yam!

She is not so good herself in anything non British she always stays on the safe side so we have decided a few months ago that on the first Saturday of the month I make her lunch. I then always try to do something she would never make like pasta dishes and like yesterday vegetable curry (I don't think she was too sure about that one though, it might have been a step too far from the bland British customs ;-))

I also try to make a bit of an effort with a dessert and turned to lovely Delia. The idea was to do something with the leftover navel oranges I had lying around from a bogoff Tesco offer!
I fancied something like a trifle so..

What is needed if you plan to do this spiked caramelised orange trifle:

Sponge for 3 people (or check what I did)
Bit of liqueur (anything but orangy/fruity stuff preferred)
2 juicy navel oranges
2 table spoons of soft brown sugar
1 table spoon of brandy
1 table spoon Custard powder
1 table spoon sugar
250ml milk


I made my own sponge (since I had none in the house) by combining 1 egg, 60 gr self raising flour, 60 gr caster sugar and 60 gr flora butter and baked it in a cake tin on 180 degrees for 25 minutes. Since this amount is very small the 'cake' is very flat which gave it a lovely crunch all over, perfect for a trifle sponge.

I took 1 of the oranges and zested it, put zest aside. Then peeled both oranges and started on trying to cut the flesh out and leave the stringy bits. (Over a bowl) Well.. that totally failed so I gave up and just cut the orange parts in half making sure I cought any leaking juice from them in the bowl, I added the parts to the zest.

Then I took the brown sugar (well to be honest I didn't have any so I took 1,5 table spoon of demarara and added half a spoon muscovado sugar) added the about 1 spoonful orange juice in a small pan and heated it, first slowly to dissolve the sugar, then a bit more fierce until it really started foaming and waited until it slightly changed colour and got syrupy, then I added a splash of brandy and poored the mixture over the oranges.

Then I made custard, very easy to do in the microwave, 15 gr custard, 10 gr sugar, 250 ml milk. First add a bit of milk to the sugar custard mixture and stir to dissolve, then add the rest of the milk and put in the microwave for 2 minutes, then stir and keep on putting it back in the miccie 1 minute at a time check through the window constantly if it doesn't overflow, this should give a nice glossy creamy mixture which I left to cool a bit.

In the meantime I cut the left over sponge (oh ehm.. I forgot to say, careful if on a diet, it is impossible to not nibble the hard bits off and then have a gooey bit for good measure when the thing comes out of the oven!

Anyway, cut the left over sponge and divided it over 3 bowls, sprinkled liqueur over it then strained the oranges, set juice aside, added the orange and zest to the sponge then added the caramelised juice to the custard making the custard taste all orangy and luxurious because of the brandy. Then poored custard over sponge and oranges and put in fridge to stiffen.

It was a magnificent success! This will be an evergreen!