One of my husband’s favourite desserts is trifle so I played around with it and made a more Christmassy version. It seemed to work – there was nothing left in the bowl afterwards anyway!

So here’s my recipe…

Love Santa’s Christmas Trifle

My Christmas trifle, all ready to be served and enjoyed…

• 1 cake – make it or buy it as suits your time and tastes. Plain, lemon and orange are nice but I used a cinnamon cake to get the Christmas scents involved
• about a cup of cherries – halve them to remove the pits
• 4 kiwi fruit – cut into chunks about 2cm cubed
• a punnet of strawberries – hull and quarter them
• half a honey-dew melon – cut into chunks of about 3 cm cubed
• 1 litre of custard – make it brandy custard if you like. It adds to the Christmas flavour and is pretty low alcohol but it’s not for everyone
• 500 ml (one packet) of set red jelly
• 500 ml (one packet) of set green jelly
• 1/3 cup cranberries (dried or halved fresh ones) for garnish
• 1/3 cup of pistachios for garnish (adds a nice green tinge to the top)

Christmas trifle recipe

1. Cut the cake into pieces – 3 – 4 cm cubes fits nicely on spoons but it can all be rough. A sprinkling of a liqueur over the cake is nice (especially if you use a stale cake like the traditional recipes call for) but optional – brandy, Frangelico or Cointreau are the most Christmassy choices.

2.

Trifle is made in layers – my beautiful glass bowl doesn’t photograph so well though unfortunately…

Put about half the cake in the bottom of a glass bowl. Does it have to be a glass bowl? Technically, no, it will taste just the same in any type of serving dish but the visual impact will be lost if you can’t see the layers before you serve.

3. Break up the green jelly and put about half of it on top of the cake. Sprinkle half of the fruit over the jelly.

4. Break up the red jelly and put about half of it over the fruit.

5. Pour half the custard over the jelly.

6. Repeat – cake, green jelly, fruit, red jelly, custard.

7. You could top it all with whipped cream (I didn’t as I don’t like it!)

Garnish with pistachios and cranberries. Or make the top layer pieces of jelly as in my photo below – very quick and easy.

Serve immediately or the next day, but keep it in the fridge.

Red and green jelly on top of the custard is a simple presentation option

Other Christmas trifles

Do you have any other Christmas trifle recipes? Or do you just stick to the traditional type of trifle, whatever the occasion or season?

I came across another recipe, which uses egg nog and glace cherries. Their additional of banana and pineapple would give it a summery taste, I think.