Chocolate Raspberry Red Velvet Trifle

Directions

• Red Velvet Cake
• Preheat your oven to 350°F.
• Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a bowl and set aside.
• Whisk together the sugar and vegetable oil in a separate large bowl. Whisk in the buttermilk, followed by the eggs (one at a time) and vanilla. Add in the food coloring, a very small amount at a time, so you can judge when the color is right. When you add in the dry ingredients, the cocoa powder will lend depth and darkness to the red.
• Mix the bowl of dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, a little bit at a time, until just combined.
• Grease two cake tins (we use Baker's Joy), and pour half of the batter into each of the two cake tins. Bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs clinging to it. Don’t dry it out, take it out as soon as it is cooked. Allow the cakes to cool completely before cutting to fit in your dish.
• Chocolate & Raspberry Sauce
• Place the raspberries in a pan and cook over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes, mashing up with the back of a large spoon and stirring constantly. Transfer the mixture into a fine-mesh strainer, place over a bowl and press and stir for a few minutes to remove the seeds. Discard the seeds.
• Place the strained raspberry sauce back in the pan, add the sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes stirring with a whisk constantly. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly and bring to boil again over medium-high heat, then reduce heat to a simmer for 2-3 more minutes. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter and allow the sauce to cool slightly before using. If the sauce gets too thick after a while just add a bit of milk.
• Mascarpone Cream
• Add mascarpone to a large bowl and mix well. In your stand mixer, or with an electric hand mixer, whisk heavy cream at high speed until foamy. Gradually add sugar and vanilla, beating until soft peaks form. Stir one-fourth of whipped cream into mascarpone using a rubber spatula and fold in remaining whipped cream.
• Building your Trifle
• In the bottom of your glass Trifle dish, start with a layer of the red velvet cake. You can either cut your cake to the size of your dish, or tear chunks of cake for the bottom layer.
• Next pour a thin layer of the Chocolate Raspberry Sauce over the cake layer and add a layer of fresh raspberries. We like to stand them up and place them in a circle, but you can just throw them in if you’d like.
• Next add a thick layer of mascarpone cream and smooth the top the back of a spoon or spatula. Finally, sprinkle cocoa powder on top and line the edges with fresh raspberries. Garnish with some red velvet cake crumbs and mint leaves and serve!