Foodie Friday - No Jelly Trifle

Afternoon All,

As we are still in celebration mode I thought you might like the recipe for this really special trifle which will make a delicious end to your New Year's day dinner. It has the virtue, for me at any rate, of having no jelly in it and the slightly tart lemon flavour is very refreshing . The recipe for the trifle is my easy take on Nigel Slater's Mincemeat Trifle ... substituting a good quality bought lemon curd for Nigel's homemade and raspberries for cape gooseberries, simply because I couldn't find them in the shops before Christmas. The bonus is that raspberries are my all time favourite fruit :) Apologies for the quality of the photograph but the light quality in my kitchen on Christmas Eve was dire. Anyway, here's the recipe:

Ingredients

For the mincemeat sponge

· 250g/9oz butter
· 250g/9oz caster sugar
· 75g/2½oz ground almonds
· 100g/3½oz plain flour
· 4 large eggs, beaten
· organic or unwaxed orange, grated zest and juice
· 100g/3½oz good quality mincemeat 

For the curd
· 1 325g jar of good quality lemon curd
· 1 orange, zest and juice

To serve
· 2 tbsp Marsala or dry sherry
· 400ml/14fl oz ready-made custard
· 300ml/10fl oz double cream
· 1 350g fresh raspberries
· handful pistachios, shelled and chopped 

Preparation method

1. Line a shallow 23cm/9in cake tin, with baking parchment or greaseproof paper. 

2. Set and preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

3. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. 

4. Mix the almonds and flour together in a separate bowl and set aside. 

5. Add the eggs to the butter and sugar, slowly a little at a time. 

6. Add the zest and a third of the almonds and flour, mixing slowly slow until the dry ingredients are incorporated, repeat this process by adding the second, and then the third lot. If you do this too quickly you will end up with a heavy cake. 

7. Finally, mix in the orange juice and the mincemeat. 

8. Transfer the mixture to the lined cake tin and bake for 35 minutes. 

9. Run a knife around the edge of the tin and turn out onto greaseproof paper and leave to cool.

10. For the orange and lemon curd layer, empty the jar of curd into another bowl and stir in the zest and juice.  

11. To put the trifle together begin by breaking the mincemeat sponge into small pieces and put them in the bottom of a serving dish. 

12. Sprinkle with a little of the Marsala or dry sherry. 

13. Pour the custard over the sponge. 

14. Next spoon the curd over the custard, cover and chill for an hour. 

15. Whip the cream and then spoon on top, 

16. Decorate the top of the trifle with a scattering of chopped pistachios and the raspberries

Whilst most of the ingredients are readily available at any supermarket, I can recommend the mincemeat and lemon curd from M&S - very tasty.

I think it would also go very nicely with Di's surprising Friday Feast this week - Ham in Coca Cola. Yes, you read that correctly - yet another use for coca cola! I haven't drunk coca cola since we experimented cleaning pennies with it in the science lab at school but I might just be persuaded to give this recipe a whirl :)

The EM usually makes a very traditional English trifle - well, he is English after all - but, as he is still recovering from that nasty accident he had a few weeks ago, it was down to me to make it this year.  I really don't like traditional trifle at all - all that jelly and soggy sponge doesn't do it for me, yuk! So when I saw Nigel making his recipe on TV and it had no jelly I just had to give it a go. I'm pleased to report that the EM thought it was scrumptious :))

Enjoy!