At last, a dessert recipe

On Saturday night BFFT and I had our first-ever Columbus houseguests. (Well actually, our first-ever houseguests given that we've always lived in apartments until this month. In most parts of California, Fresno being the only possible exception that comes to mind, it costs an arm and a leg to even rent a house. Never mind owning... you have to be over the hill for that!) Ken and Amanda came here for dinner, and I must admit I was a tad nervous beforehand. Not only do both Ken's blog and the buzz among our mutual friends suggest that he's a very competent, experimental cook, but moving to a new area and expanding your social network also means that you have a new group of people to whom you can (or shall I say must!) prove your culinary skills. It's sort of like re-entering the dating world after a major breakup. On one hand, you have an opportunity to start completely fresh and not be pigeonholed anymore (e.g., as "the crazy one" or "the control freak"... of course I was never either of those things). On the other hand, however, you need to get to know somebody else and his/her likes and dislikes all over again.

Fortunately for everyone, the dinner was a success. For the main course, I made slow-roasted chipotle salmon fillets with pineapple-"cilantro" rice. (Amanda, who happens to share my cilantro aversion, was relieved to discover that I'd substituted parsley.) I'll post those recipes in the not-too-distant future, but for now I wanted to share the grand finale: a peach trifle. Some of you might be wondering what took me so long to post about dessert, in particular because of my gigantic sweet tooth. If that were a literal phrase, I'd probably resemble one of those cartoon donkeys with ridiculous-looking buck teeth. So much so that whenever I go to dinner with BFFT's family and the waiter asks if we'd like to see a dessert menu, they all point to me and reply practically in unison, "She would!" I'm pretty sure I inherited this dessert fetish from my paternal grandma. As it happens, the following peach trifle recipe is from Cuisine at Home, the magazine she subscribed me to a few Christmases ago.

For the peaches:
Peel 1 lb fresh peaches (about 1 medium and 1 large) and slice into wedges. (I made 12-16 wedges per peach.) Combine with 2 T sugar and juice of 1/2 a lime (about 1 T). Toss to coat.

For the pound cake:
Cut 3 cups (about 9 ounces) of prepared pound cake into 1" cubes. Drizzle 1 T rum per trifle (or per layer, if you're like me and you have a hankering for booze in your dessert :)) over the pound cake during assembly. The alcohol flavor will mellow as the trifle sits.

For the melba sauce:
Combine 1 cup fresh raspberries, 1/4 cup raspberry jam (blackberry works fine too), and juice of 1/2 a lime in a blender. Puree until smooth.

For the whipped cream:
Combine 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, and 1/2 t almond extract in a bowl. Beat cream on high speed using an electric hand mixer until soft peaks form, 4-5 minutes.

For the topping:
Thinly slice 1/4 cup fresh mint leaves and set aside. Rinse 1/2 cup sliced almonds (this was way too much for us to finish; 1/4 cup would suffice) under water. While wet, combine with 1/2 cup powdered sugar so a gummy paste coats them. Spread nuts on a baking sheet coated with nonstick spray and bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes, then stir. Return to oven for another 3-4 minutes, or until garden. Spread almonds on parchment paper and let cool.

To assemble the trifle:
Layer the components two times in each glass in the following order: peaches (3-4 wedges per layer), pound cake (3-4 cubes per layer), melba sauce (2 t per layer), whipped cream (2 T per layer). Don't pack the layers down too much - having spaces will allow the flavors to blend properly. Cover the trifles and chill at least 1 hour and up to 24. Garnish with sugared almonds and mint just before serving. The ingredients above make six individual trifles in 10 oz glasses. Use whatever glasses you have, but make sure they're clear so that you can show off the layers!

Notice that I said the recipe serves six, and there were four of us at dinner on Saturday. Turns out I had some of each ingredient left over and didn't think to take a picture before I served it. But then BFFT, who usually isn't too big on sweets, told me this was his all-time favorite dessert of mine. So the following evening I just had to make two more trifles (darn it!), in order to show all of you.

Argh! I just tried to upload the pretty picture, only to encounter an "internal server error". Check back later!