Indulgent recipies

[My login is Henrietta]

A Proper Edwardian Trifle (courtesy of three generations of my mother's family)

This is not the namby-pamby sort of so-called trifle of the sort that gets onto televised cheffy programmes these days and it's much in demand by the men of my acquaintance! Be careful when catering for drivers and children, though.

Line the bottom of a large glass dish with trifle sponges or slightly stale cake spread with raspberry jam and a few crushed ratafia (or amaretti) biscuits. Pour over sherry (as much as it will absorb - Emva Cream is good - horrible for drinking but excellent for trifle). Drain a large tin of peaches  reserving the canning liquid and spread the peaches and some fresh raspberries over the cake and sherry. Refridgerate.

In the meantime make up a red and a green jelly using the liquid from the canned peaches plus boiling water (not too much - you want it to set firmly) and put in the 'fridge to set, and a pint of thick custard (my Great Grandmother used to make her own custard but you can use Birds) and leave to cool and almost set. Later or next day chop the set jelly and layer the two colours on the cake and fruit then stir a good slug of rum into the custard and place on top of the jelly. Chill again.

Whip up some double cream - enough for a good thick layer - and spread on top of the rest. Decorate to your taste - glace cherries, slivered almonds, silver balls, etc., this is not meant to be tasteful decoration! Chill until ready to eat. There won't be any left over IME but if there is it's yummy next day when the left-overs have collapsed in on themselves and gone all squishy.

Made a version of this for a Caribbean evening, substituting ginger cake and ginger jam for the trifle sponges and raspberry and soaking it with ginger wine and rum. For the fruit and jelly layers used mango and tropical fruit jelly. Topped with rum-laced custard and whipped cream and decorated it with glace pineapple, etc. Went down very well.

[Howard]

As we all intend to overindulge at this time of year, I though I'd share one of my most delicious recipes. This is one of the richest chocolate puddings you'll ever eat, but it's gorgeous and, if you do it right, very light and fluffy indeed.

Chocolate Splodge (our family name for the mousse)

1 lb plain chocolate 70% is good.
1 pt double cream, whipped.
6 eggs, separated

Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Add in egg yolks stirring all the time so (if the chocolate is too hot then the eggs will cook, if it's too cold, when you add the eggs it goes a little lumpy). Fold in the whipped double cream followed by the stiffly beaten egg whites. Do this carefully so as not to collapse the bubbles. Leave in the fridge for at least 24 hours.

A couple of additions; you could throw a double espresso into the chocolate or perhaps a splash of a liqueur such as Gran Manier or Creme de Menthe.

Looking forward to seeing other people's recipes too.