Syllabub Trifle

by Lotte Duncan

"This pudding has every right to be a little full of itself.  Layer upen layer of brandy, rum, creamy  custard, fruit, amaretti biscuits and Madeira cake is finally topped with a smug lemon syllabub and cluster of roses. A pud with a well deserved ego."

Lotte's tip:

"I call this trifle the cheat’s version because it is literally assembled in minutes from easily available ingredients.  You can make your own cake and custard, but honestly, you don’t need to.  When this pudding is put together all the flavours merge and I really believe you can’t taste the difference.  And as you know, I’m all for spending time with my friends when they come for a meal, not slaving away in the kitchen."

Serves 10

Ingredients

• For the syllabub
• Grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 150ml/5floz dry or medium white wine
• 1 heaped tablespoon icing sugar
• 700ml/11/4 pintsdouble cream
• For the trifle:
• 1 x 500ml carton fresh custard
• grated zest of 1 large orange
• 1 ready-made Madeira cake or Swiss roll, thinly sliced
• 5 tablespoons sherry
• 450g/1lb raspberries
• 250g/9oz amaretti biscuits
• 5 tablespoons brandy or rum
• 450g/1lb strawberries, hulled and quartered
• 5 fresh roses, to decorate

Method

1. For the syllabub, combine the lemon zest and juice, white wine and icing sugar in a small bowl. Set aside for 2 hours.
2. Mix the custard with the orange zest.
3. Place half the cake at the bottom of a 2.3 litre/4 pint deep glass serving dish and pour over the sherry. Toss the raspberries on top. Now add the amaretti biscuits, pour over the brandy or rum and place the strawberries on top. Now pour over the custard and top with the rest of the cake.
4. Make the syllabub by loosely whipping the cream and adding the lemon and wine mixture gradually to it. Now, just be careful at this stage – when you add lemon juice to cream it does tend to thicken it quite quickly, and you want this syllabub to be the same consistency as the custard – not over-whipped and stiff. You still want some movement in it.
5. Spoon the syllabub over the cake, piled on top. When you are putting the trifle together, try to show the different layers throughout, this makes for a lovely tall trifle with lots of colour.
6. Decorate with the roses – just popped on top like a little bouquet. It turns this trifle into a centre-piece, which looks fabulous on a Summer table.