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A festive Christmas trifle that’s simple to make and lovely to serve, with layers of jelly, fruit, sponge, custard, and whipped topping. This easy trifle recipe keeps the classic UK Christmas dessert tradition alive without making things too complicated, so it’s ideal when you want something special on the table but don’t have time for a fully from-scratch pudding.

Using strawberry and raspberry jelly, canned strawberries, trifle sponges or Madeira cake, homemade custard, dream topping, and a final flourish of cream, this retro dessert is built in stages and left to set in the fridge between each layer. The recipe also includes a few optional extras, like white chocolate in the custard, jam on the sponge, and decorative toppings such as cherries, almonds, and sprinkles.

It’s a comforting Christmas dessert, a traditional trifle for holiday gatherings, and a practical make-ahead pudding for anyone planning a festive dinner. Perfect for fans of easy Christmas recipes, retro desserts, UK trifle, and classic pudding ideas for the holidays.

SEO: Christmas trifle recipe, easy trifle recipe, festive dessert, traditional UK Christmas pudding, retro trifle, make-ahead holiday dessert, jelly and custard trifle, simple Christmas dessert, classic trifle for Christmas dinner, dessert recipe for festive gatherings.
Transcript
00:14well hello there folks and a very warm festive welcome back to what's for tea it's lovely to
00:20see you and i hope that i find you very well and for this week's retro recipe or archive recipe
00:26i'm going to do this wee retro trifle we have a trifle every year it's a bit of a christmas
00:32tradition all over scotland actually there are more complicated trifles out there but this one
00:38is fairly simple sometimes i do my jelly from scratch using gelatin and fruit but i'm going
00:44to keep this one simple just because it doesn't take quite as long so let me hand you over to
00:50me
00:50from a few years ago and i will catch up with you just at the end so i'm using two
00:56packs of these
00:57jelly blocks so i've got one strawberry and one raspberry but really you can use whatever
01:02flavor jelly you prefer i just like the combination of both flavors so just make it up as indicated on
01:10the back of your pack i just chop mine into small chunks and then i add some boiling water and
01:16just
01:16stir that around you know obviously until the wee jelly blocks have melted so i've done that for the
01:21strawberry one and i'm also going to do that for the raspberry one as well but with the raspberry one
01:25i'm going to add slightly less water just to give me a firmer jelly because obviously you're piling
01:31everything you know everything else on top of it so i want this a wee bit firmer so i've used
01:36half the
01:36amount of water in the raspberry one but again it's up to you you would typically add some kind of
01:41canned
01:42fruit to this so i'm going to add some canned strawberries and don't worry if when they come
01:47out of the can they'll look a bit anemic because they will but once you add your jelly you know
01:52you
01:52wouldn't really notice that so just pour your jelly on top of that and you want to let this set
01:57in the fridge but before you do that you can add some trifle sponges or savoyarde biscuits something
02:04like that just something that's going to sort of puff up and expand and absorb some of your jelly
02:10you could even use madeira cake as well or some kind of sponge cake if you don't have these it's
02:15no problem you know it's not a big deal so pop that into the fridge just until it's set mine
02:20took
02:20about three hours so you're best off doing this in the morning now i'm going to go on and do
02:25the
02:25custard so traditionally we would use bird's custard powder so again just make it up according to the
02:32back of your pack so i'm just popping in some sugar and the custard powder and then some whole milk
02:38just pop a wee drop in just to get it going and smooth out all the lumps and then you
02:42can pour
02:43the rest of your milk in or pour it all over the top of your cooker it's up to you
02:47you just want to
02:48stir this continually until it starts to simmer and thicken and i'm going to add in some white chocolate
02:53buttons to mine just to give it a nice sort of creamy vanilla flavor again this is completely optional
02:59you don't have to do this but this is just something i like to do with powdered custard because
03:04it doesn't really have much of a flavor and i'm also going to take some more of the trifle sponges
03:09and i'm going to spread some raspberry jam on two of these now this is something i've never seen done
03:15before other than by myself but it does make a big difference it gives you a nice a cakey custard
03:21so i just cut these into chunks and i'm just going to arrange them around the side of the bowl
03:26just like
03:27this and then slowly pour in my warm custard and it will lift the biscuit up you know the
03:32big sponge pieces will lift up and they will stick to the side of the bowl it's some kind of
03:36magic
03:37but make sure you do it nice and slowly yeah you can see it going there do it nice and
03:42slowly and
03:43they will stay on the outside if they don't you can just push them back with a spoon but they
03:47will
03:47stick to the side of the glass so pop that into the fridge to set again and then once you're
03:53ready
03:53you can do your dream topping now we use dream topping but i think in other parts of the world
03:58it's known as dream hot but it's just a very nice sort of creamy almost like cream but it's a
04:03lot
04:03sweeter than cream so just make this up again according to your pack instructions i'm using two
04:09packages of this just keep mixing until it's nice and light and fluffy just like this and then when your
04:16custard is set you just want to pop that on the top and you're going to have to let this
04:20set as well
04:21so much of this is just letting things set you know it just takes a wee bit of time but
04:26like i
04:26said you're better doing this first thing in the morning or even the night before would be ideal
04:30so pop this into the fridge to set i gave this one overnight because it's quite a thick layer it
04:35did
04:36take a wee while the last thing i'm going to do is finish it off with some whipped cream this
04:40is just
04:41some double cream and i added in a wee touch of icing sugar and a wee dash of almond extract
04:47as well
04:48just to give it a nicer sweeter flavor again it's up to you how you decorate the top of this
04:53this is
04:54just typically what i like to do i've added some flecked almonds some of these wee cocktail cherries
05:00that you get in the jar and they are lovely they've got such a strong artificial cherry flavor
05:06i've added some white chocolate stars and then just some of these wee star sprinkles as well but i mean
05:12you know i've got all of these things in the cupboard so i don't have to go and buy a
05:16lot of this
05:16stuff so you just use whatever you've got my mother just used to use the chocolate vermicelli
05:22or the hundreds and thousands or chocolate sprinkles whatever you like to call them so
05:26please do just use what you have and doesn't it look fab and this looks amazing on the you know
05:33on
05:33your dinner table at christmas but as soon as you start hacking into this obviously the shape
05:39complete you know completely changes so i'm not going to do that i'm just going to leave it here
05:43nice and pretty for you but do let me know if you're planning on giving this one a go like
05:48so yeah absolutely delicious and highly recommended you give it a go if you do like these kinds of
05:53things it's a much simpler version of the one that i normally do and i do have a more complicated
05:59version where you do the custard from scratch and like i said the jelly from scratch which i will
06:04leave down below just in case you want a more challenging version but thank you so much for
06:09watching if you're still here and a huge thank you to you all for watching leaving your lovely
06:14comments for those that share the videos those that have left me a super thanks donation or bought
06:19me a coffee using the buy me a coffee link and i will catch up with you during the week
06:24so yep take care
06:25and bye for now bye now
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