Very Berry Italian Trifle

8 trifle sponges or a sponge cake, cut into slices
1 cup red currant jelly
8 - 10 Amaretto cookies (the hard version)
1/2 cup Limoncello
juice of half a lemon
12 oz. blackberries
2 eggs, separated
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups Mascarpone cheese

Split the trifle sponges and make little sandwiches of them by spreading 1/4th of the jelly in each, then place them into the base of your glass bowl.

Grind up the Amaretto cookies in a food processor.  Sprinkle most of these evenly over the sponges and reserve some crumbs for sprinkling over the top at the end.  Pour half of the Limoncello over these.

Put the remaining jelly into a wide saucepan with the lemon juice and melt over a low heat. Add the blackberries and turn up the heat for a minute or so just until the juices start running. Pour berry mixture over the sponge sandwiches to cover and let sit while you complete the rest of the recipe.

.With a hand-held electric mixer, mix the egg yolks with the sugar until you have a thick smooth yellow paste.  Add in the remaining Limoncello and continue mixing until you have a light mousse mixture. Mix in the Mascarpone cheese until everything is smoothly combined.

Finally, in another bowl, whisk the egg whites until firm.  Fold these into the lemony, egg-y Mascarpone mixture.  Spread this gently over the blackberries in the glass bowl.  .Cover the assembled trifle with plastic cling wrap and leave in the fridge for the flavors and textures to steep and meld for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours. Take the trifle out of the fridge for about 40 minutes to an hour before it’s needed to get to a cool room temperature.  Sprinkle remaining amaretto cookie crumbs on top

I found this recipe from a new favorite blog chef named, La Bella Vita.  There's just something about cake smothered in berry juices and who knows what else but the picture she posted, sold me right off the bat.  Here it is:

See what I mean?

I thought about possibly making this for company that we're having at the end of the month so I had Elise make it this week just to see if it was good enough ;)  Well hands down, it's fantastic!  The only thing we substituted was the Limoncello as we didn't have any and never got around to buying some.  I did some research and I could of used lemon syrup just as well but I couldn't find that either while at the store.  I decided to make my own and even though Elise didn't think it worked, I don't want to say it didn't work but I'm sure having a strong sweet lemony flavor would have made this dessert so much better if that's even possible.  I've never had Marscapone Cheese before (at least I don't think so) but I'm really liking it.  It's got a creamy, sweet cream cheese taste to it but much better tasting.  It tasted so much better the 2nd day as the cake had more time to soak up all the juicy juices.  Don and Grandma absolutely loved it.  My only regret is I really want to taste it either with the Limoncello or lemon syrup.  ~isavortheweekend