à table

Another pic at the dinner table! Made trifle and it was amazing. I bastardised a few different recipes I found online. Here ya go:

1 Madeira cake
Raspberry jam
4 tbsps Cointreau
Strawberries
Caster sugar
Whipping cream

For crème patissière:
6 egg yolks
110g caster sugar
35g plain flour
475ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split lengthways and seeds scraped

1. Make crème patissière. Beat yolks and sugar until pale and fluffy. Bring milk (with a pinch of salt) to the boil. Take off heat and add vanilla pod and seeds. Cover and leave to infuse for 15 mins. Take out vanilla pod. Add flour to yolk and sugar mixture. Pour milk into mixture and whisk until well incorporated. Don't worry about the odd lump as they will disappear in the next step which is: put mixture (yolks, sugar, flour and milk) back onto heat in a clean pan. Bring to the boil slowly, stirring continuously until thickened. Remove from heat and leave to cool completely. Cover with cling film (so it touches to stop it forming a skin).

2. Cut Madeira cake in half along the middle. Put jam on bottom half and place top half back on. Cut into slices and place half of these in the bottom of a glass bowl. Sprinkle over 2 tbsps of Cointreau and half of your chopped up strawberries and their juices. Cover with half the crème patissière. Add the rest of the cake pieces, pour over another 2 tbsps of Cointreau, rest of the strawbs. Finally top with the rest of the custard and then a layer of lightly whipped cream. Decorate with sprinkles or whatever you like.

3. It's best made a few hours before or, like I did, the night before so the cake has loads of time to soak up the different flavours. Keep in fridge.