Trifle

I love Jaime Oliver! (Actually, no, I don't, but it's a great catchy way to start a blog entry :D)

Having the prvilege of cable TV and a day off recently, I managed to catch one episode recently. Gosh has he put on weight! Marriage and fatherhood does agree with him, or perhaps it's the 'hazard' of the job from all the food.

He did this really simple yet funky British desert which I couldn't really catch the name of, but which sounded like truffles. (thks Mags for pointing out that it should be 'trifle'! What struck me was how easy it is to do (provided you live in Britian!) since its only assembly required, yet turns out so 'posh'! Here it is, to the best of my memory.

Ingredients
1) Packet of ready jello. Here Jaime used red jello for the nice colour contrast with the custard. [apparently you can get these in Brit supermarkets but I can't find them here :( ]
2) Canned custard [again, ode to Brit supermarkets! :( ]
3) 1 Chocolate bar
4) Canned mandarins
5) Sponge cake
6) Alcohol (something that goes well, say rum, brandy, kahlua, tia maria or Bailey's?)

Method
[While us poor sods who don't have access to ready-made jello and custard have to prepare the things from scratch, the rest of the world can get on with the assembly of the receipe.]

1) Take the sponge cake, cut it up into cubes. Bring out 4 serving glasses (chilled preferably) and rrange them at the botom of the glass. Pour over a tsp of your chosen alcohol, or more if you like! Press down to let it soap up the alcohol.
2) Pour the ready jello into a bowl and roughly chop it up with a knife.
3) Spoon on the jello on top of the soaked sponge.
4) Pour on a layer of custard to cover the jello.
5) Continue alternating the layers until you fill the glass.
6 Lay the chocolate bar smooth side up on the countertop. Using a knife, hold the sharp edge and run the knife along the chocolate bar, towards you (basically a scraping action but be careful!) Place shavings artistically on top of dessert.
7)Top off with some slides of tinned mandarins.
8)Serve immediately with fresh sprigs of mint if you have them.

And Jaime has a website and blog and here's some interesting info on trifle,