Serve up the holiday season in a glass! Whether you're hosting a feast of friends or having a more intimate gathering, these trifles are sure to leave a lasting impression on your guests. Raspberry-rum drizzle keeps the cake moist with a tongue-tingling boozy note, while the cream cheese contrasts the tart raspberry flavor. Make these trifles up to 3 days ahead for fuss-free hosting.For an alcohol-free version, replace the rum with apple juice.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Coat a 13x9-inch baking pan with flour based baking spray, or grease and flour the pan.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the sugar, eggs, yoks, and vanilla extract. Mix on medium speed until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. Add the melted butter and food color. Mix again.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Sift the dry mixture over the wet mixture. Mix on low speed until just combined. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the bowl and fold in any streaks of flour.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until well risen and a toothpick tester inserted near the center comes out clean. Turn onto a wire rack to cool completely.
When the cake is cool, use a large chef’s knife to cut the cake slab into 1” cubes. Remove 8 cubes to a small bowl and crumble them with your fingers. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.
Rum-raspberry drizzle
In a small mixing bowl, combine the raspberry jam, rum, and orange juice.
Whisk together until well combined. Cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel and set aside.
Cream cheese filling
Place the cream cheese in a large bowl and beat with a hand mixer until fluffy. In a separate bowl, beat the heavy cream while gradually adding the sugar. Mix in the vanilla and beat until soft peaks form.
Add in 1/4 of the whipped cream to the cream cheese mixture and fold to combine. Add in the remaining whipped cream and fold in gently.
Transfer the cream cheese filling to a piping bag fitted with a large open star tip.
Assemble the trifles
Place red velvet cake pieces into the 12 oz. glasses about 1/3 of the way up the glass. Drizzle half of the raspberry-rum mixture over the cake pieces in the glasses (a little more than 1 tablespoon per glass).
Pipe a swirl of cream cheese filling over the cake cubes in each glass. Top the cream cheese filling with more cake cubes and spoon over the remaining raspberry drizzle into each glass.
Pipe a swirl of cream cheese filling over the cake cubes and immediately garnish the tops the reserved bowl of cake crumbles.
Cover trifles and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Up to 4 hours before serving, add rosemary sprigs standing upright to one side of each trifle.
Notes
Variation: If you have more than 8 people to serve, consider assembling the components in smaller glasses. The 12 oz. rocks glasses called for make a hearty serving indeed. You could easily use 6 oz. glasses and double your yield!
Keyword christmas dessert, cream cheese, cream cheese filling, holiday desserts, individual Christmas desserts, make ahead deserts, red food color, red velvet cake, red velvet trifles, rum raspberry drizzle