A Mere Trifle

Yesterday’s Facebook Memories threw this up

6 June 2010 at 19:07 ·

Made my first ever trifle for Fester's birthday tea - was better than I expected seeing the drama that went on whilst I was making the blancmange - there was stirring and simmering all right!

I never liked trifle as a child.  The texture of those sponge fingers in jelly just turned me off:  that and the esatz cream on top.  So I never made trifle for birthdays.  The kids made do with jelly frogs.  But Fester does love a trifle so as a special birthday treat, 10 years ago, I bought and made up a trifle kit. 

It was a faff but it pleased him so much I made another one for Thunderthighs birthday.  Only this time I bought all the ingredients separately as it seemed more economical.

After a couple more I thought “Why not put a tin of fruit in the bottom, that will help make those sponge fingers more palatable?”

The Pearce Duff blancmange boxes have 4 different flavours, you can get jelly in all sorts of flavours and shops' own brand whip, which makes an excellent topping.

Pretty soon I abandoned sponge fingers.

We now have ginger cake, madeira cake or even swiss roll depending on what tinned fruit I want to use.

First I slice the cake up and line the bottom of the trifle bowl with it.

Then I make the jelly with half a pint of boiling water, topped up to a pint with the juice from the tin of fruit.

The fruit go on top of the cake and the jelly is poured on, soaking into the cake and holding the fruit in place.

Once that is set I make the blancmange and pour it on top.

Then, half an hour before tea, the whip is whipped up and put on top followed by sprinkles.

Strawberries and raspberries work best with swiss roll and their own flavoured jelly, blancmange and whip.       Some years I’ve managed to find fresh berries in place of the sprinkles.  A very pink result.

My favourite, tinned pears, go very well with madeira cake, lime jelly and most flavours of blancmange and whip.

Fester’s favourite combination is ginger cake, mandarin orange segments, lime jelly, vanilla blancmange and butterscotch whip.  This year he’s had to make do with strawberry blancmange as that was all that was available.

Thunderthighs likes a trifle too but Ferretfingers finds it all too complicated. 

He will eat any of the ingredients (except the fruit) presented separately, but never together. 

Autism is a strange thing.

Strawberry trifle with real strawberries: a very pink result