mention a trifle to any american and chances are they'll start quoting the 'friends' episode to you

serve it to them and they'll sit bolt upright and croon, 'mmm! is there liquor in this?'

for the aussies and brits, seeing a trifle set upon the dinner table means one of two things:

it will rekindle the sweet, nostalgic memories of a favourite aunt or mother's recipe...

...or it will rekindle the mouth clenching, nose wrinkling reaction to the trifles served in boarding schools and cafeterias throughout our youth

in any case, anything that combines booze, cake, cream and fruit can't be all bad

here are some untraditional updates for you to try...

my nan ran pubs

in tiny country towns across australia

one of them was a wee spot called mooroopna. you'd pass a sign on the way in calling it 'fruit salad city'.

it's where my mum grew up

when I was living in london, I got a call in the middle of the night. when you live away from home, the sound of the phone in the dark hours screams, 'someone's dead!'

no such thing. it was my mum calling to tell me that they'd sold their house and were retiring to mooroopna. relieved, I thought to myself, 'mum's moving back to her bridesmaids'...a logical thing for women to do. her bridesmaids were the drag queens of my youth; they had bigger hair and louder voices than my mum, and they wore much trendier clothes. I spent all of my summer holidays sweltering in mooroopna

and so, with my friend, dee, in tow, I found myself in mooroopna one christmas. dee is from atlanta, so the culture shock of an outback aussie christmas where, in sweltering heat, we turn up the air conditioner and drag out a hot turkey / christmas pudding dinner as though it were a chilly london winter, was all too much...we fell asleep straight after lunch

but that evening, mum told us that we were all invited to bridesmaid #1's house for supper. she had made a plate of turkey cold cuts, artfully arranged on a bed of iceberg lettuce, and her signature trifle

keyword: signature trifle

every aussie housewife does her own little thing with her trifle. my mum made hers on stale jam roll, port (sherry never had enough 'oomph' for mum), and instant vanilla pudding. served on the side? fruit salad (key ingredient: grapefruit) and red jelly. she cut a few corners by not making her own cake or custard, but we all grew up on this and I am rather partial to it. my aunty nance always made her own custard and her trifle looked terribly authentic (and tasted it too, I might add)

well, mooroopna is a one-hair-salon kind of town, so as everyone arrived at bridesmaid #1's home, all of the wives sported exactly the same hairdo, they all came armed with exactly the same cold turkey platter...and they all came bearing a trifle. the trifles, of course, were NOT exactly the same. every woman had her own take on the traditional sherry-cake-jelly-fruit-custard ensemble

it might not have seemed it, but this had become a very delicate situation which would have to be navigated with all the diplomacy of a UN peace keeper

I took dee aside to explain that somehow, with nearly a dozen trifles laid out, it was important that each be tasted and, in a non comparative way, a compliment must be issued to the maker: "mmm, is that homemade jam, sheila?", "I love the fresh peaches, vera" and so forth...

you try tasting that many trifles and finding something nice to say about each one...and if it was tough for me and dee, it was near impossible for the husbands. one wrong word or too enthusiastic praise for another woman's trifle was tantamount to infidelity!

and my trifle? lady fingers or cake soaked in sherry, fresh fruit, good jam and custard. I go heavy on the sherry, skip the jelly and oscillate on the home made custard. for this newlsetter, I actually made individual trifles using old jam jars...cute, the proof of any pudding is in the tasting! click on the pic for the recipe of the site

take a long, parfait spoon and dig: through the cream, through the barely there layer of mousse, through the whiskey soaked slab of cake and all the way down to the dark, velvety core of belgian chocolate custard. now scoop it all up and taste...

this is possibly a chocolate lovers multiple orgasm

you can cheat or you can spend a little time using a lot of eggs and cream, and quite a few mixing bowls creating this. it's not difficult at all, the custard, or chocolate pudding is simple enough...even more so if you buy a pre-made one

'pre-made!?'

for those of you lucky enough to have a trader joe's nearby, try the belgian chocolate pudding and you'll see what I mean

for everyone else, click on the pic to see the recipe that I came up with (trying to emulate the store bought one!)...it's pretty fine

chocolate mousse is even easier:

melt: 5oz of good, semi sweet dark chocolate (use a double boiler or a bowl over a saucepan of water)

whip: 1 cup cream until doubled in volume and holding its form. clean the beaters thoroughly and dry them because now we are about to beat egg whites...

beat: 3 egg whites in a clean bowl with a pinch of salt. when they are foamy and form soft peaks, add a little sugar, 2 tblspns, and beat until glossy, stiff peaks form

beat: 2 egg yolks into the chocolate. mix this into the whipped cream, then fold the egg whites into as well. be careful not to knock all of the air out of the whites as you mix them into the chocolate cream

chill: for at least 4 hours if serving as mousse, for the trifle, you would pour it over the custard and cake layers. I would normally add a little whiskey, but the trifle needs the whiskey on the cake...

want a 10 minute version: skip the mousse, pour store bought (there's that word again...) chocolate pudding into a serving bowl, add a layer of cake, cookies or brownies (I used chocolate rugeleh)...I omit the word 'leftover' because, let's face it, leftover chocolate cake is as mythical a beast as the griffin or sphinx. anyway, pour your choice of spirit or liqueur over the cake layer, then spoon scoops of really amazing chocolate and vanilla ice cream on top. pour some hot chocolate sauce (zap some chocolate in the microwave and stir in some cream: instant chocolate sauce), add some cream, cherries, whatever...

after making a disgrace of myself gorging on bbq ribs from philips (an LA institiution), I tasted my first red velvet cake (it was that or peach cobbler on the dessert list) it was crazy good...

red velvet cake is a US southern creation, traditionally used to make the groom's cake at weddings (think 'steel magnolias'). it is a chocolate cake with an entire bottle of red food colour poured into the batter

I did a search on the internet for a recipe, followed it, baked it and was thoroughly disappointed with the results. I refused to waste the cream cheese that it would take to frost the cake (and I made a cheesecake from a recipe given to me by my 87 year old tax lady...another story)

so, armed with a whole, lousy livid red cake, I realised that I had the actual makings of a trifle: unwanted, leftover cake!

so I tore it up, doused it in kirsch, smothered it in good cherry jam (bonne maman) and fresh cherries, then topped it off with a good custard

served it with a mountain of whipped cream and glace cherries

fed it to a few friends...we all took turns poking our tongues out and comparing the shades of red...what can I say? small things amuse small minds

*for the record, rachel (from nigella's site) forwarded me a recipe for red velvet cake...my mistake seems to have been in not using buttermilk. click on the pic to e-mail me if you'd like rachel's recipe

if instant pudding was good enough for my mother, then I can't really argue with it, can I?

there is a time for making home made custard, and there are times when custard powder of instant pudding have to do

here's my custard recipe:

heat: 1 1/3 cups of milk, 1 1/3 cups cream and a split vanilla bean (or 1 tspn vanilla) to almost boiling point. remove from heat

mix: 6 egg yolks, 3 tblspns sugar, 1 tblspn corn flour/ starch in a large mixing bowl

pour: milk and cream mix over the egg yolks, stirring constantly. pour back into the saucepan and place over a low heat, stirring constantly

stir: stir, stir. the mix will thicken and start to bubble. allow to simmer (gently, very gently) for a minute, then move to a sink full of cold water. keep stirring for 5 minutes whilst the custard cools

allow to cool and then it is ready to pour over the trifle

(I cheated by using the corn flour, I admit it...)

panna cotta with peaches poached in rose wine jelly on a bed of madeleines

rhubarb with a cardamom custard

spiced apricots, grappa soaked lady fingers and zabaglione

margarita soaked babas with lime curd and meringue

margaritas? well, I'm sitting at my friend, Vicki's and we've knocked over a pitcher or two of fresh margaritas. am kicking back in san francisco this weekend and feeling very little at the moment...

let the love flow...

mannix@thelovebite.com