An Australian Trifle that's Aces!

I've had the most wonderful luck in snagging Australia's own Carla Anderson's recipe for trifle. Now, those Aussies make their trifles a bit different than we do. They use jello - while in the states, we usually use pudding. Also, you'll have to convert the measurements; I'm a bludger. If you're too lazy to attempt the recipe, simply enjoy the beautiful picture (and notice how lovely Carla's kitchen it). If you do make this recipe, you'll be grinning like a shot fox for days!





INGREDIENTS:

1 plain cake
2 x 85grams pkts of jelly mix
Grog of choice - I went with sweet sherry
600mls of custard
600mls of cream for whipping
300grams of mixed berries
Vanilla ice cream to serve

1. A couple of days prior to making the dessert, bake a plain butter or vanilla cake, to form the base of your trifle. It seems to work better when it has a couple of days staleness to make it nice and firm.
2. The day before, make up 2x85g pkts of jelly. Choose two different colours, cos this makes your trifle extra pretty! Allow the jelly to wobble-up - that is, set. I think it's either 'jello' or gelatin for you guys
3. To assemble:

*Take your prettiest large round glass bowl (you want to see the pretty contents).

*Line the bottom of the bowl with 1/2inch thick slices of cake, curving up the sides of the bowl a little. You can run it as far as half-way; depends on how much cake you have and whether you've sneaked any pieces on the day it was baked ;-) Reserve approx half dozen slices to layer in later.

*Grab your alcohol of choice (mother always used sweet sherry, so daughter did too)... it was in the fridge, and I wasn't going to worry about spending $30 on something else we wouldn't drink. If you check out the other recipes, you'll see you can use all manner of alcoholic beverages - whatever lights your fire. Go glug, glug, glug over the cake, then glug, glug a bit more. It depends on your taste for the alcohol - whether you are looking for a booze hit (no cooking involved in this dessert) or just a snifter, as they say. The idea is to add flavour and to moisten the cake.

* Next layer, add the first coloured jelly, all broken up into spoon-sized pieces. Continue to layer dollops of vanilla custard (probably 600mls would be enough) and other coloured jelly and some more cake until your bowl is nearly full.

*Finally, whip 600mls of cream. Spread or dollop on top as your final layer. For extra prettiness, add 300grams of mixed berries - I used a frozen mix and defrosted them: blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.

*Devour generous servings with your favourite vanilla ice-cream.

I used full-fat, full-sugar everything, but you **could** reduce your calories by using low-fat custard and ice-cream, and fake sugar jelly. I didn't, though. Instead, I convinced myself that this was actually a high calcium dessert, packed with anti-oxidents. HeeHee. Works for me...;-))