Easy low sugar sherry trifle recipe

We feel bad.  We've rhapsodized about chocolate, pumpkin pie and red velvet, but have neglected one of our favorite all-time desserts:  sherry trifle.  How rude of us.  A good sherry trifle has always been one of our greatest comforts, perhaps because it has all the necessary food groups - fruit, custard and cake.  Last Thanksgiving our sister-in-law made a sherry trifle - with custard and pound cake from scratch - which presided over the groaning dessert table like a gleaming jewel in its glass pedestal bowl.  Most of the relatives fought over the pumpkin pie, but we made a beeline for the trifle that night.  Thankfully there was plenty left over, and for the rest of the week while our family ate bacon and eggs for breakfast and turkey sandwiches for other meals, we ate trifle.  It took us a while, but by the end of the holiday the bowl was empty.  It was one of the best weeks of our lives.

Back home soon after - we were asked to bring dessert to our friends' house where the husband happens to be diabetic.  Our usual offering is the Ralphs sugar-free lemon pound cake, which is absolutely delicious.  But with Thanksgiving fresh on our mind, we decided to dress up the Ralphs cake and make our own low sugar trifle.  We were in a hurry so we cut corners and bought pre-made sugar-free vanilla pudding.   We also used a store-bought raspberry sauce with a lower sugar content.  If you want to save a buck, make your own pudding from a box and use our recipe for the sauce.  And if you're not fortunate enough to have a Ralphs in your area, many grocery stores have their own version of a sugar-free pound cake.  But if you live in the middle of a swamp with no good store but have access to Splenda (now there's a premise for a sitcom) we found a recipe for a sugar-free pound cake here. 

We realize this is not the strictest of low-sugar recipes - after all, there is booze involved.  Some diabetics may not tolerate it so use your discretion about the amount or if to add it at all.  Our friend not only tolerated it - he kept the remainder to eat for breakfast the next morning.  We think we've started a tradition...

Dessert Girl's Low Sugar Sherry Trifle (serves 4)

Ingredients

• 1 store-bought sugar-free pound cake, lemon or original flavor, cut up into 1-inch cubes
• 1 20-ounce can of crushed pineapple in its own juice
• 2 4-packs of sugar-free vanilla pudding or 1 large box of vanilla instant pudding.  (If you are making the pudding, you will need milk.)
• Raspberry sauce (pre-made brand like Silver Palate or recipe to follow)
• Cooking sherry

Raspberry sauce

• 1 pint raspberries, fresh or frozen.  Set aside a handful of raspberries for garnish.
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1/4 cup Splenda

Directions

If you are making the pudding, do this first and set aside to cool.  Make raspberry sauce by putting all ingredients in a saucepan, heat until almost at a boil, mash ingredients together and strain through a sieve.  Let cool.

Put half of the cake cubes in a glass bowl and douse with sherry to taste.  Spoon raspberry sauce and follow with a liberal splat of pineapple.  Layer with vanilla pudding, more cake, sherry, sauce and pineapple.  Top with any leftover pudding and whole raspberries.

Chill for at least one hour and serve.

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