Birthday Trifle

Had he hurried up Fester could have shared his birthday with the Queen’s accession to the throne.

However yesterday was his birthday and I’m utterly astonished to find myself married to a septuagenarian. Especially as when I first met him we were both in our twenties.

Over the years our little family has developed our own traditional birthday tea menu: ham and cheese sandwiches; cheese pizza; pepperoni pizza; a cake (usually but not always chocolate); ‘ket’ i.e. various sugar laden shop bought cakes and a trifle.

Facebook 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!

Tylebach wow! blancmange! haven't had that in years! mmmm

That first trifle was made using a Birds package and ‘sponge fingers’, the consistency of which has always put me off trifles.  Then I realised I didn’t have to use them, I could do my own thing.  Sponge fingers have been replaced with any sort of cake:  madeira is good with strawberries; swiss roll with almost anything; but our preference is ginger cake with mandarin segments or pears and lime and lemon or orange jelly.

For quite some time now it’s been difficult to find blancmange mix so a little while ago I experimented with crème-caramel.  Oh my gosh that works.

The whole is topped off with whatever Angel Delight or shop brand equivalent is appropriate.

On Sunday evening I prepared the first layer of this year’s trifle: ginger cake, tinned pears, lime and lemon jelly made up using the syrup from the tin.  Yesterday morning the crème-caramel went on.  At teatime I added the butterscotch whip and sprinkles.