Lucas Christmas Trifle
This is a family tradition - my sister and I would spend the whole year dreaming about our Christmas trifle, and how everyone loved it and it was the best thing ever. We never noticed that our cousins avoided it like the plague. Turns out that in 25 years of Christmases they had NEVER ONCE EATEN IT. They were turned off by the custard mixing in with the cream and the fruit. Wimps.
Ingredients
- 2 tins of tinned berries - I like cherries and raspberries, but boysenberries and blueberries are good too.
- 600 mls of cream, whipped.
- A Swiss roll, cut in to 2 centimeter rounds
- A good slurp of sherry
Christmas custard
- 2/3 cup of custard powder
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- 3 cups milk
- 3 eggs separated
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Method
In a saucepan, blend the custard powder and sugar with a little cold milk. Add the rest of the milk and heat over a medium flame, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens (this is a very thick custard - it shouldn’t droop too much in to the other ingredients when it’s assembled). Turn the heat off and add the egg yolks, stirring quickly so it doesn’t turn in to scrambled eggs, add the vanilla at this stage too.
Allow to cool then fold in lightly beaten egg whites.
To assemble, drain one of the tins of fruit, and retain the juice from the other. Pop it all in the bottom of a large glass bowl and add a good slurp of sweet sherry. Line the jam roll rounds around the edges of the bowl on top of the fruit (don’t let it sink in too much - the jam should help it stick to the sides of the bowl to stay above the fruit line…). Top with the custard and then the whipped cream.