Christmas trifle

No Christmas Day in our house is complete without my husband Paul’s trifle. He makes it every year and takes great delight in sourcing the best sherry with which to coat his sponge cubes.

He never stints on the final flourish of whipped cream either and one year caused howls of derision because
he accompanied the heavily creamed trifle with another huge bowl of whipped cream!

Of all the English traditions we have inherited out here in the colonies for Christmas dinner, the trifle lends itself more easily to a mid-summer meal. Unlike the Christmas plum pudding, which is a heavy, warming dessert best eaten on a chilly winter’s day, the trifle is light and when smothered with fresh strawberries, looks like a bowl full of summer.

The tradition of making trifle originally seems to have as its main purpose an excuse to get completely sloshed after soaking sponge cake in copious amounts of brandy. However, the earliest known recipe for trifle was for a thick cream flavoured with sugar, ginger and rose-water and was published in 1596. Sixty years later, custard was added and poured over alcohol-soaked bread.

One of my old cookbooks from 1845 suggests soaking sponge cake in “equal parts of wine and brandy – about a wine glassful of each – or two-thirds of good sherry or oadeira, and one of spirit,” which amounts to a fair amount of alcohol for one trifle. Another Scottish version is called a Tipsy Laird and is made with whisky.

I found this recipe for Tipsy Cake sent into a 1950s cookbook by Mrs J Armitage of Auckland.

Tipsy cake

• 1 large sponge cake (stale)

• 6 tbsp brandy

• Sweet wine or sherry (there is no quantity provided,but I suggest 6 tbsp)

• 50g blanched almonds

• 750ml custard

• Whipped cream

1. Soak cake in brandy and wine, then stick almonds over the cake. The cake should be placed in a pretty mould. Pour the custard over and garnish with whipped cream.

This is my husband’s recipe, which he informs me dates back well into the 1960s when nanas – including mine – discovered the joys of packet strawberry jelly, instant pudding and supermarket-baked cakes. You could easily substitute the instant pudding with homemade custard if, like me, you have an aversion to instant pudding.

Paul’s trifle

• 250g marble cake or sponge cake

• 1 tbsp strawberry jam

• 1 tbsp sweet sherry (or apple juice)

• 1 cup water

• 85g packet strawberry jelly

• 600ml milk

• 85g strawberry instant pudding mix

• 300ml thickened cream

• 1 chip of strawberries

1. Split cake in half and spread jam on one half, then top with remaining cake.

2. Cut cake in 2cm pieces. Place cake pieces over base of an 8-cup glass dish. Sprinkle with sherry.

3. Heat half the water in a pan, add jelly crystals and stir until dissolved. Remove jelly mixture from heat, stir in remaining water and pour over cake. Cover and refrigerate until set.

4. Combine milk and pudding mix in a bowl and beat with electric mixer for about two minutes, or until mixture is thick. Spread strawberry pudding mixture over jelly.

5. Beat cream, spread over top and decorate with strawberries.

Do you have a Nana recipe you’d like to share with me? I’d love to hear about it. Email me at: wendyl.nissen@nzww.co.nz or write to Nana’s Pantry, NZWW, Po Box 90119, Victoria St West, Auckland 1142.