"I'm Sorry… This Trifle Tastes So Good."

So this trifle is a little bit different to what you usually see online and the main reason for this is the trifle custard. I make a silky traditional trifle custard that has a pouring cream consistency. It permeates through all the layers and makes the whole dessert taste so decadent and delicious. This is the way I've been making it for years and it always receives such wonderful feedback. In this video I also make the homemade Swiss roll but if you don't have time to make the Swiss roll just get one from the shop. This will still taste really really delicious. I'm sorry that tastes so good. If you've never made a Swiss roll before I think you'll be really surprised how quick and easy it is and for that reason the first thing I do is preheat the with a fan or 200 degrees celsius without a fan so a moderately hot oven. The recipe today comes from the shower cookery book and it's a Swiss roll recipe that I've been making for many years and it always turns out wonderful and you know what it also translates wonderful for gluten free flour. It's just a straight one-to-one swap because it's a sponge it doesn't rely on the gluten. Now the first thing I do is measure a good half a cup of caster sugar and I weighed that and that's 120 grams into a bowl because I'll need that soon. Then into a large bowl crack three room temperature eggs and if your eggs are out of the fridge just pop them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes and that'll bring them up to room temperature. Now I beat this for three minutes and I even set a timer for it and it will be thick and creamy like this that's just three eggs and now I get the caster sugar that I measured and just a little bit at a time I'll beat this in until it's all dissolved in the eggs and this should take two minutes. Then the recipe says one scant cup of self-raising flour and scant means not really full to the top almost full and if you can't get self-raising flour it says one cup of plain flour plus a half a level teaspoon of bicarb and plus one teaspoon of crema tartar and it says to sift twice so the second time I sift it is over the sponge mixture and try and get it all in the bowl. Sprinkle over four tablespoons of cold water and fold this through and that's it that's all the ingredients in the sponge part of this. Now you'll need a Swiss roll tin or a lamington tin. I usually just use this lamington tin I've got that measures 34 centimetres by 23 centimetres and I've just put some spray underneath lined it with baking paper and sprayed it a little bit inside again and I pour this mixture into the tin. Now this goes in the oven for between 10 to 12 minutes. Have a little look at it at 10 minutes I usually find it needs 12 minutes and I just put it in the upper third shelf of my oven. Now you can use any flavour jam you like I like raspberry or strawberry sometimes and what you want to do is make sure it's nice and loose before the sponge is ready because it's really quick once you get it out of the oven so just give it a good stir especially if it's fridge cold and the other thing I have ready because I have to roll it up is a clean tea towel and the book says to sprinkle flour on the tea towel but I like to sprinkle some caster sugar instead that's how my mum used to make it most of it will come off anyway this is just so it won't stick to the tea towel. So it's had 12 minutes in my oven and it's ready and I immediately tip it onto the tea towel with the caster sugar and try and film it at the same time. Carefully peel off the paper roll it up unroll it spread the jam all over it and then immediately roll it up again and now I'll leave it to go cool in the tea towel and that's a beautiful Swiss roll and hopefully I didn't get a crack in it because I was trying to film it at the same time but even if it is cracked it doesn't matter I'm going to slice it up and the jelly I just make up exactly the same as the packet directions and I love using port wine flavoured jelly and I use two packets because it doesn't matter if I've got some left over but it just ensures that I have enough for the trifle. I really love jelly in a trifle. The most important thing with jelly is to dissolve the crystals in the boiling water first until you cannot see them or feel them and I'll allow that to come to room temperature then I'll put it in the fridge to set but I do this the day before I want to compile it all. This recipe for the trifle custard is the one I've been using for years and it's just a beautiful trifle custard and it comes from the Food Network. I'll put the link in the video description. You'll need six egg yolks for this recipe but what I do is I freeze the whites and thaw them overnight in the fridge and they whip up beautifully. I make pavlovas a lot and they'll go in the freezer and they'll last about three to four months in the freezer. So I've got six yolks in this bowl but I'll just set that aside for a moment and into a heavy-based pan put two cups, oh there's nice cream on the top of this milk, two cups which is 500 ml of whole milk and two cups of cream which is also 500 ml. Now the recipe says one vanilla pod scraped but I always just use vanilla essence and I add that after the custard has been cooked. So I'm going to put this on the stove and over a medium heat bring it to the boil and while the milk and cream is coming to the boil in the bowl with the six egg yolks I add 170 grams of caster sugar which is six ounces and which is almost a cup, that's a cup measurement. It's quite sweet this but you know it really works with the trifle and two tablespoons of cornstarch or corn flour and now I just get a whisk and I whisk this until it's smooth and it's gone a little bit pale in colour and I find it easier to whisk if I just hold the bowl and give it a good whisk and this is a good little workout this one and I usually just keep whisking until the milk and the cream has come to the boil but that'll do. It's got paler in colour, it's nice and smooth and the sugar has dissolved in the egg yolks and when the milk and cream have come to the boil remove it before it boils over and if you're working by yourself which I usually am now I temper the eggs and I just get a ladle, put a ladle in, give it a good stir with the whisk, put another ladle in, another good stir and after about the fourth ladle you're safe to tip all the So pour that back in and this now goes on the stove. I just gently stir this and what will happen is it will begin to thicken. Now you don't want this to boil because if it boils it will split but I just stir it with a spoon continuously over a sort of lowish heat and if you like you can switch to a whisk and back to a spoon and as the egg and the cornstarch mixture starts to warm up it will thicken and this trifle custard thickens up slightly when it cools down and it's been refrigerated but it is a runnier custard and I can feel that starting to thicken up. If I run my finger down a spoon and it stays there then that's a good indication that that's ready. I always try to push it that little bit more. So I remove it off the heat and I strain it into a clean bowl and I just add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. If you add vanilla extract early on it sort of can lose its flavour, its potency and see that's exactly how I want it. So what I do now is I wait for it to come to room temperature then I'll cover it, put it in the fridge. Doesn't matter if the skin forms because it's for the trifle anyway and actually a skin helps it set. So that's it for today. It's the custard, the jelly and the sponge roll and tomorrow all I have to do is wash some fruit, whip some cream and maybe toast some flaked almonds for the top and put it together, the fun part. I'll show you how this Swiss roll looks. It's totally cooled down now so I'll just unravel it. Most of the sugar has fallen off and that's a Swiss roll. I'll cut it in half and I'll show you what it looks like, a Swiss roll. But I'm going to cover that up and tomorrow I'll slice it for the trifle. I'll see you tomorrow. So it's the next day and there's a few things I need to do before I put the trifle all together or the trifles all together. So I love using fresh berries but you can use tin fruit or any fresh fruit. If you're using tin fruit I really suggest to drain it really well and I've got two punnets of blueberries here which is 170 grams each and I have a 250 gram punnet of strawberries here and all I'm doing is removing the green stem but berries and strawberries are notorious for pesticides, well that's what I've read. So I like to just give them a soak first and I just soak them in cold water with a good teaspoon of bicarb mixed in and then I'll rinse them thoroughly and dry them and you know what it also brightens the fruit and that's 600 mils of cream which I'll whip and I'll just pop that in the fridge for a moment while I get other things ready. Now the berries have been soaking in that bicarb for about 10 minutes now and that's enough and look how bright they get. I do this with all my vegetables and seriously it makes them so bright. So I'm just going to rinse it off in the sink and just spread them out on a dry cloth to dry out a bit. Now totally optional but I really like some toasted flaked almonds on top and all I do is put some flaked almonds into a dry pan and over a medium heat I just toast them for a few minutes until they show some colour and when they start releasing their oils it doesn't take long from there but as long as I've got a bit of colour on most of them that'll do and I'll just transfer them to a little bowl and let them cool down and these go on the top of the trifle just before I serve it. Now once the strawberries and the berries have dried out I chop up the strawberries into sort of bite-sized pieces the same size as a blueberry actually because if possible you want a spoonful of trifle to have a lot of the layers in it so you don't want anything too big. So I've separated my blueberries and strawberries so I have the almonds cooling down but they're not for the very last and the jelly that's been in the fridge overnight is well and truly set and now what I do is I just cut that into smallish cubes by just running a knife one way and then the other way set that aside and now for the jam roll that's been sitting covered overnight I'm going to slice it into slices. Now what I usually do and it seems counterintuitive of making a jam roll is that I chop it up into cubes so I can sprinkle it on the bottom of each glass but if I was making a large trifle using this I would take pieces out and put it all around the edge of the trifle but I'm just making little individual ones so I'm going to cut them into cubes. Now I'll show you the custard that has been in the fridge overnight. Now if you like a thicker style custard but still want to keep the silky smoothness of this trifle custard then I suggest don't add any more cornstarch that'll make it sort of like gritty but add maybe a couple more egg yolks or reduce the amount of liquid slightly so instead of four cups perhaps three and a half or three cups of mixed cream and milk but this is what it should be like pouring cream you'll see in a minute. I'm just going to pop that in the fridge until I'm ready to use it and the fun part putting it all together. So I have a mismatch of glasses here and I never really know until I start distributing it how many trifles I get but usually between eight to ten but I'll line them up and start the production. I do like these parfait glasses they're beautiful. Now I've washed my hands because hands are seriously the best to put the things in of the trifle. Now the cake layer is probably my favourite layer when the custard permeates that it just tastes so good so this always determines how many trifles I'll be able to make. Some glasses are bigger than others but that's okay. Then absolutely optional but I don't mind it myself is just a sprinkle of sherry and that's entirely optional if you don't use it you don't need to put anything the custard is moist enough to wet all the layers beautifully. And the next layer is the jelly the port wine jelly and I'll try and evenly distribute this and you don't have to use all of these two packets if you think it's enough then stop. Now I'm going to put some blueberries on each of them I might have too many blueberries here I'm such a heavy-handed cook and now the strawberries on top of the blueberries and you might be thinking quite rightly there's no room for the custard but because the custard is that runny beautiful silky custard it goes through all the layers and it fills any little gaps. So what I do now is put the custard on top and then I get either a skewer or a spoon and just gently move it around a bit so the custard goes right down the bottom where the cake is and there's no air holes. And once I've done that then I can top them up with a little more custard and then with a damp clean cloth I just go around them in case I've spilled anything on them which usually I do. Now you can pipe the cream on or just spoon it on I normally just spoon it on and be generous with it it's a really lovely element because I'm putting the flaked almonds on top I'm not worrying about piping them and I never usually pipe it to be honest I just do this rustic look here which I think I prefer. Now I don't sprinkle the almonds on now I do that before I serve it and these need to go back in the fridge for at least two to three hours just to set up nicely. And the only thing I had left over from all that was just a bit of jelly and a bit of cream. Here Mike. I actually turned down the fridge we've had really hot weather and we haven't adjusted it and I think our fridge was a little on the warmer side but everything is set beautiful. It's been about like three hours and I sprinkle some of these lovely toasted almonds on top for a bit of crunch and I like serving these trifles in the glasses on a plate. A company called Ainslie which was established in 1775 recently sent me some beautiful well a few plates and a few bowls to use in my videos and it's fine bone china and I think it's the nicest china I've ever had and they said that they've provided a link for 30% off for anyone who wants to go and check them out. I'll put that in the video description but any plate will do. I love serving it like this because people get a lovely dessert and they don't have to handle the actual trifle and it's currently 30 degrees inside this house so I better taste it and that's why the plate is good as well. That is so delicious. I don't know if you can see that but that's not really sloppy at all. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed as if you try it. It's just really, really, really yum and one of my personal favourite desserts.