Cranberry and Lemon Trifle

I recently bought four individual-sized trifle bowls and I've been excited to make trifle ever since. I've been thinking about a Christmassy trifle recipe, but I couldn't find any I liked, so I decided to create my own. I've never made trifle before, but I know that it usually consists of cake, something custard-like, fruit, and whipped cream, so I decided to use a lemony cake, lemon curd, cranberry sauce, and whipped cream. When I thought about something that would go with a Christmassy ingredient such as cranberries, I knew lemon was the answer, because my sister and I have been making a lemon-cranberry loaf recipe for a couple years and we love it. It's a classic combination that works and tastes delicious!

Here's what you need to make the trifle:

Ingredients

• About half a can of cranberry sauce
  
• Enough whipped cream to top trifle
• One pouch of lemon pie filling such as no name brand's "lemon pie filling and dessert mix" (as well as additional ingredients to make it depending on box instructions)
• Lemon-flavoured cake

I began my trifle recipe by making a lemon cake. I decided to use http://www.foodnetwork.ca/recipes/Eggs/Dairy/recipe.html?dishid=9123. It's really a recipe for lemon Madeleines, but they are cake-like with a lovely springy texture and bursting with lemony flavour. Instead of a Madeleine pan, I used a round cake pan, but you could use a Madeleine pan if you really want to; I'm sure it would look really pretty too.

Besides the Madeleine recipe you could also, of course, buy a cake mix. If you can't get a lemon-flavoured cake mix you could get a lemon and add the zest of the whole lemon to whatever cake mix you do have.

For the lemon filling, I used a pouch of lemon filling powder and simply followed the directions on the box. I really wanted to use lemon pudding, which I'm sure would be good, but this is great as well. You could make a lemon curd from scratch at home or buy some at the store, whatever works for you.

I used a can of cranberry sauce because I couldn't find any fresh cranberries to make my own. I'm sure a homemade cranberry sauce would be better than canned, so if you can, you should try that instead.

The rest was all easy. To assemble the trifle, cut the cake in to circles roughly the size of the individual trifle bowl. If you're making four desserts, I suggest cutting the cake in to eight circles so that you have two for each individual trifle bowl. I didn't have quite enough cake to have eight perfect circles, so I had to cut some in to chunks. That's okay too. Place one cake circle into the bottom of each bowl. Then layer on a bit of lemon filling and cranberry sauce. Add the rest of the cake circles or chunks, and then layer more lemon filling and cranberry sauce on top of the final cake layer. Finally, top the trifles with whipped cream.