Sunday lunch part 2 – the trifle

Here’s what I did to make this version of trifle. It’s not really a recipe. On Saturday night I made up the jelly, to give it time to set in the fridge. I just made up one 85g packet of Cottees port wine jelly, put the liquid jelly in a tupperware and left it to chill and set in the fridge overnight.

I then sliced a jam-filled swiss roll into approx. 1cm thick slices. The swiss roll we used had a light sprinkling of sugar on the outside. We didn’t particularly look for it to have sugar on the outside, but it probably added to the super-sweetness of the trifle. I then lined the glass bowl with the sliced cake. When I’d mostly covered the bowl with swiss roll, I cut the remaining slice of swiss roll into smaller pieces and squished them into the gaps. I then used a teaspoon and sprinkled sweet sherry over the swiss roll slices. I personally don’t like to overdo the alcoholic content because I prefer the cake component of the trifle not to be overly soft or soggy, so although you could tell there was sherry in the trifle, the swiss roll was still fairly firm when we served it up the next day. It’s up to you how much sherry you like. If you like your puddings boozy, go for it!

I then made one serving of custard (one serving made up approx. 500mL of custard) according to the instructions on the box (we used Foster Clarks because that’s all there was in the supermarket at the time), but I used an extra tablespoon of custard powder (the box said two; Jac declared three would be appropriate as we required a thicker custard). I left the custard in the saucepan to cool. When I first tasted the custard I was worried it wasn’t sweet enough and started thinking that perhaps I should’ve added an extra spoon of sugar too, but later I realised my fears were completely unfounded.

When the custard was sufficiently cooled, we put fresh strawberries that had been washed and sliced into halves on top of the swiss roll layer – enough strawberries to cover the dish and make a discernible layer of strawberries. Then I made a thick custard layer over the top of the strawberries. I then Glad Wrapped the whole dish and bunged it into the fridge overnight, because I thought the trifle would be nicer topped with cream freshly whipped on the day of serving rather than cream that had been whipped the night before.

On Sunday morning, I whipped up a 300mL carton of Brownes Whipping Cream until nice and thick and then spread that over the top of the custard layer. And last of all, just before serving, I topped the trifle with sliced up jelly bits. I actually used only half of the jelly. It seemed plenty to me.

So there you have it! Trifle to wash down the roast pork.