I need a great trifle recipe

[IslaValargeone]

My dad's birthday this week, I'm cooking, he loves trifle. Give me the ultimate trifle recipe I beg you. No sherry though please.

Think most of my trifles are fairly bog standard, cream, custard, jelly etc. However I do hate sponge fingers so always bake my own sponge cake I let it bake for a little longer than I would a normal cake so it's a nice golden brown and then I break it up fo the base. Yum.

Delias cheat choc muffin and black cherry trifle was DIVINE and made in about 3 minutes

Uses Kirsch rather than sherry

sorry RUM

Take one McVities lemon cake. Cut into slices & make little sandwiches with either lemon curd or blackcurrant jam. Place in bowl and slosh over a little cassis or limoncello. Add some tinned, drained blackcurrants, reserving the liquid. Make up a blackcurrant jelly according to the packet but using up the syrup/juices from the tin as part of the required liquid. Chill overnight. Top with ready made nice quality custard & whipped cream. Crumble a flake or two over the top.

The sharp lemon/blackcurrant business makes for a nice contrast with the sweet cake and custard.

Oh Dear lord I will be the size of a house, I may have to make them all! Thankyou.

Is it no sherry in particular, or no alcohol in general?

Slice up a Swiss roll and line the bottom of your trifle bowl with it. Add a tin of fruit cocktail (no juice/syrup). Make up a raspberry jelly using the reserved juice and as much water as needed and pour over the sponge/fruit layer. Let the jelly set.

Add a layer of custard, either made up or tinned. Add a layer of whipped cream - dream topping to be 70s authentic. Finish with 100s and 1000s.

I was once given some peaches in brandy for xmas and wasnt really sure what to do with them (didn't fancy eating them with just cream) so made a trifle with them - have to say best trifle I ever made!!

I was going to suggest the Delia chocolate trifle but cyb's beaten me to it. It is very good and sooo easy

Another thing which is nice with trifle is to beat mascapone cheese and custard together for the topping. I think that might also be a Delia suggestion actually, but it's so much nicer than plain old custard.

I think sour cream on top - rather than cream - is better.

My favourite trifle is a ginger and orange trifle. i serve this on an oval plate instead of a glass bowl but i'm sure it works both ways.

slice a jamaican ginger cake and layer along the bottom of a deep plate. drizzle over cointreau and let soak in. peel and segment oranges and layer over the cake. make a proper home made hard custard let cool and cover the fruit. cover with whipped cream. sprinkle over toasted chopped/flaked almonds. and decorate around the edges with half moons of sliced oranges.

We always have this on boxing day as the flavours are quite xmassy.

Slices of chocolate marble cake in the bottom of the trifle dish. Pour over some Baileys/Tia Maria/Kahlua/Cream de Cacao (whatever you have to hand).

Take two cartons of Ambrosia Devon Custard. Pour one into a pan. In one, add some dark chocolate (about 100g) you can either leave the second one as it is, or add white chocolate to it.

Pour the dark chocolate custard onto the sponge first, and then the vanilla custard.

Sprinkle a crushed Cadbury's Flake on top. Chill.

Sorry - should have said that you need to heat the custard gently so that the chocolate melts into it!

This is the best trifle ever imho:

Slice lots of madeira cake and make into tiny sarnies with good raspberry jam then use it to line a trifle bowl. Drizzle with port.
Chuck over some raspberries, top with more tiny cake sarnies and more port.
Pour over a tub of good ready made custard with vanilla seeds then leave overnight. In the meantime, make a syrup from port and sugar and toast some almond slithers.
Whip cream and put on top of the chilled cake/fruit/port layers.
Drizzle over the syrup and sprinkle over the almonds.
Eat.

And just in case there isn't enough chocolate in my trifle, you can also sprinkle Chocolate buttons or chocolate polka dots liberally through the custard layers.

trifle should not contain jelly - terrible mix!

I wouldnt bother making your own custard nless you have the eggs and time - just add vanilla seeds to a shop bought or birds. But it must set well

I follow a Gary Rhodes recipe. Use frozen fruit and add sugar and a little arrow root to thicken as I'm not keen on it being too sweet. Heat up with the sugar, add sherry (must) and finish with arrow root just to get the fruit thicked.