Christmas Trifle

First let’s start off by making the first layer of your trifle, the raspberry jelly. Weigh 500g of washed raspberries into a small mixing bowl. Using a fork to mash the raspberries until all broken down. Take three leaves of gelatine and soak in a bowl of cold water for 5 minutes.

Remove the gelatine from the cold water and squeeze out any excess water and place into a saucepan with three tablespoons of the mashed raspberries. Melt slowly over a low heat. Once melted pour back into bowl with the rest of the mashed raspberries and mix so that the gelatine is evenly distributed. Pour into your trifle bowl and pop into the fridge to set. Tah-dah you have made your first trifle layer!

Next up the sponge; preheat the oven 180℃/160℃/Gas Mark 4, grease and line a 25 x 33 cm (approx) baking tray. Pop the flour, ginger and cinnamon into a large bowl and mix together.

In a heat proof bowl mix the eggs and the sugars and place over pan of simmering water, whisk for 2 minutes until light and fluffy. Remove from the heat, using an electric whisk, mix for 6 minutes until thick and pale.

Gently fold in the dry ingredients until just combined. Next gradually pour the melted butter and golden syrup slowly and gently fold in to avoid knocking any air out of the mixture.

Gently pour mixture into your prepared baking tray using a spatula to gently spread out evenly across the tray. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until the sponge is springy to touch. Remove from oven and transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. When your sponge has cooled using a star or festive cutter cut out enough shapes to fill the circumference of the trifle bowl plus a few extra to decorate the top of the trifle. You also need to cut out a large circle of sponge the same diameter as your bowl to create one of the trifle layers.

Now we move onto the caramel layer, pop the sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Measure out the cream and keep close to hand, along with a whisk, whilst the sugar boils. Keep your eyes on that pan and once the mixture starts to turn golden brown it’s time to pour in the cream. Whisk to mix through the cream, but be careful as sugar will bubble and is very hot! Remove from the heat and allow to cool in the pan.

Now it’s time to make the custard, pop the milk and double cream into a sauce pan with the vanilla extract. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat. 

In a bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy and then whisk in the cornflour. Gradually pour in the hot milk mixture and whisk until smooth. Pour your custard mixture back into the empty saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until it thickens this could take 8-10 minutes, be careful not to let it boil. Pour into a clean bowl and cover the surface of the custard with greaseproof paper to prevent a skin from forming on the custards surface.

Next up lets make the mascarpone cream, pop the double cream, mascarpone and icing sugar into a large bowl and whisk together with a hand held electric whisk until soft peaks form. 

Finally to make the meringue beat your egg whites with a hand held electric whisk until softly peaking. Gradually beat in the sugar, a tablespoonful at a time, beating well between each addition until you have a lovely thick and glossy meringue.

Now it’s time to build your show stopping trifle; grab your trifle from fridge with set raspberry layer, next add a 1cm layer of whipped sweet mascarpone cream before adding the gingerbread sponge stars around the circumference of the bowl, popping a raspberry between each star. Add the remainder of the sweet mascarpone cream with a piping bag to help keep the stars in place. 

Add a layer of caramel on top.  Then pop on the gingerbread sponge disc. Pour custard on top and smooth out to create an even layer.

Spoon the meringue over the custard and torch to add a lovely golden finish to your meringues. 

For a beautiful finishing touch arrange ant left over raspberries around the top of trifle. Pop your gingerbread sponge decorations and chocolate stars on top of the meringue and finally finish with a sprinkling of chopped hazelnuts!

Now it’s time to present your beautiful trifle and dig in!