The setting is a mountain top village called Arevenu, in the lush steps of the tea plantations a few km from the larger town of Kotagiri, in Kerala, South West India. There, right in front of me, is a sign with my name on it, and in so many ways. It sells dry but tasty biscuits in big jars, sticky turmeric coloured swirly sweets, impossibly vivid cake and tiny glasses of sweet spicy coffee. The sign for the next shop advertises its wares as "Rasi flowers, Fruits and Pooja things" to take to the small temple back up the steep busy road. And above the traditionally lettered Thangam Bakery and coffee shop orange shaded sign is a well known visual symbol...
This phenomenom seems to be the pelmet curtain topping off every fifth shop in South India this year. One further fifth are sponsored by the other one. In Kerala, where soft drinks' manufacturers who shall remain nameless (google it) have (allegedly) drained the local water table and pumped back the waste into the local environment, leaving drinking water undrinkable and farming water, well, unfarmable, it is unforgivable, if hardly surprising, to find the (alleged) offender logo dotted throughout the state trying to soften the blow with free sign writing services. South Indian coffee, served milky, sweet and spicy, cooled by threading the liquid back and forth between two tiny glasses, needs no logo. Aesthetically, it's jarring at best. Politically, it's a smack in the face, post colonialist colonialism hanging over your head as men below sip the same sweet brown liquid they always drank. We can (allegedly) take your water, sell it back to you as something else, muck up the water supply in the mean time and THEN you will yourselves voluntarily erect monuments in our image above your shops. Take that.
The connections between this photo and the opening recipe: a) that's my name (THANGAM) b) I was there two weeks ago and took that picture, and c) this is my signature dish: TRIFLE. There's a fiddly version (the one with the home made creamy egg and vanilla custard which can so easily split and turn to the appearance of curdled milk - ruined - in the time it takes a to swig a large-ish mouthful of wine) and a cheating version.
Years ago, 1996 in fact, I tore out of the Guardian a Nigel Slater gem called "A trifle over the top". It has stayed with me ever since. Nigel, has, I suspect, like me, in the interim years gone through the ins and outs of trifle eating affected waist malfunction. His photo on the recipe makes me wistful. Ah. 1996. How I wish I could remember it. I am sure I was much slimmer then. This is my adapted version of the blessed Nigel's recipe for traditional trifle. If you are scared of that word, perhaps you need to let go of any insufficiently buried memory of a green jellied, lumpy custarded and aerosol creamed horror that lurks in your subconscious. It's so not like that at all...
The base layers
All butter Madeira cake - might as well buy two, you will probably need more than one if you are catering for a sociable party of greedy sods, then you can scoff some spare bits and have enough for a cheeky secret extra one just for you to eat in the morning.
A jar of fine jam - a Bonne Maman confiture of your choice is my suggestion. Again, probably you don't need the whole jar but best to have in case of need, like the need to lick the spoon and then start again
Couple of glasses of good fruit juice - or sherry if you must but I don't see the point. Just serve with champagne if you want alcohol
Bananas, mango, grapes, peach, strawberries - a mixture to taste, but include some soft, some sharp and none woody (so no apple or pear) and ABSOLUTELY NO tinned fruit EVER
Lemon juice to squeeze on the banana to stop it going brown
The custard (forget any idea you have of something out of a tin and too yellow)
500ml good single cream
1 very juicy, very sticky, very fresh vanilla pod with all the seeds - get the best you possibly can, this makes the whole dish special
2 egg yolks AND 2 full eggs
4 tablespoons sugar - caster sugar or fine organic golden sugar, nothing sticky or wholesome or dark, this is a pale wan looking custard we are making here
The topping
250ml double or whipping cream - to whip to stiffness (too easy) but not solid butteriness, then spoon gently but oh so firmly on top of the wobbly layer of cooled cream custard
decoration to taste - fresh fruit, silver balls, hundreds and thousands, gold dust, glace fruit, to your preferred level of kitsch/minimalism (but do remember this is trifle, not wheatgrass juice, so more is really more and less is also more, everything is all just more)
The method
Base
Line the base of your dad's crystal cut glass bowl, or other suitable - ideally transparent large vessel with thick slices of the madeira cake. The best trifles give the eager eater-to-be a preview, with layers oozing enticingly and visibly into each other.
Pour enough juice all over the cake layer so that it can become moist but not soggy. You will have to use your judgement. If in doubt, do it a bit at a time. You can't squeeze the juice out afterwards.
Leave this to one side. Meanwhile, prepare the fruit, get it all ready, wash and trim and chop - tedious, but remember trifle should be NO EFFORT. So no large bits. Or seeds. Or chewing. Act accordingly. Slurping is the strongest jaw related movement we want.
Jam
Now heat the jam in a small saucepan enough to get melted and runny, but not to burn or stick, so don't leave it alone for a second and keep stirring with a wooden spoon. As soon as it has reached the desired state, pour it evenly all over the sodden but not soaking cake. Spread this so that there is a layer across the whole cake layer. Allow to cool. Don't be tempted to taste the hot jam with any of your clean spoons or your finger. It will hurt.
Custard
And so to the custard. I thought I hated custard till I made this, so don't go ugh there. It's a million miles away from Birds (you can still like both, if you must, but they are different things) and shouldn't even have the same name as whatever it was they used in school dinners in 1974. Yes, it does make you one of those people who really makes their custard from scratch with fresh vanilla seeds and everything. So?
Get two large-ish saucepans, clean and dry, ready. Half fill your sink with very cold water. Make sure you have lots of room for putting down saucepans, pouring mixture from saucepan to bowl and back, and plenty of clean spoons. You will want to test this custard many times and you should do the adult thing and just go ahead and do it, but use a new spoon afterwards.
Heat the cream slowly and carefully in one saucepan. Keep a close eye on it, whilst you firmly whisk up the sugar, egg yolks and eggs in a larger than necessary bowl. This bowl will need to take all the cream and some stirring, so plenty of space. Remember the motto of the trifle: more is more. Scrape all the vanilla seeds you can into the cream, then just drop the whole pod in there anyway. You can (and probably will, but it's hardly the end of the world if you forget) fish this out later.
When the cream is just starting to bubble at the edges and look like it might boil any minute but hasn't quite, pour it over the egg/sugar cream, stirring (or hand whisking) all the time, to stop scrambled egg-ness or curdling. Maybe it is better to do one thing at once, I have been told this by clever people. Do the egg/sugar whisking thing in the big bowl. Then scrape vanilla stuff into cream. Then heat cream and stir till nearly boiling. Then pour onto egg/sugar in bowl, whisking all the time.
When you have poured the cream out, put that saucepan to one side and give the whole thing a good whisk - probably by hand, or you will get it everywhere - before pouring it all back into the second, clean saucepan. Put this back on the heat, very low. Have patience and wooden spoon to hand. Keep stirring, even when you think there is no point. Don't get hasty and turn the heat up. It will look like nothing's happening for longer than you think you can stand. This trifle is not just tasty, it doesn't just provide you with two of your five a day, it's character forming too.
As you stir, just when you have given up the will to carry on, it will suddenly start to thicken. Keep stirring, don't overheat, consider taking it off and back on the heat as you stir and it thickens and you stir and it thickens and you panic and you take a teaspoon to it and it tastes delicious and you consider eating it all. Take it off the heat and move away. Moving away won't make any difference to the taste or texture, but it is a time out tactic to stop you hogging the lot and locking the door when your hungry party guests arrive. Let the damn thing cool. Leave it alone.
Fruit I upTo distract yourself from the joy in a big spoon that is the custard, arrange the fruit on the jam layer, trying to ensure a good and even spread and trying not to think about the custard. When custard has cooled, spread it on the fruit layer. Let it cool some more. Actually, now I come to think about it, custard before fruit. You can then happily spoon the whipped cream on top and then decorate, or not, as your taste dictates.
Serving suggestionIf you serve the accompanying champagne as mimosas with fresh orange juice, this will surely count as three of the five. But anyway, who cares. Serve after savouries. Scrape the bowl out. Make sure you keep an extra mini one hidden in the fridge, behind all those mystery ingredients bought but unused which lie on the lower shelf. Then you can eat it for breakfast. With muesli, more fruit, more cream or just with a spoon. and another mimosa.
The cheating version: instead of all that faff with the custard, thoroughly mix one tub marscapone with one tablespoon sugar and plenty vanilla seeds, then add more cream or creme fraiche and keep combining until you have something to do the job of custard. This will involve plenty of testing, so keep those clean spoons. You can add an egg yolk, if you aren't allergic, aren't raw-egg-phobic and want some egg custard effect without the risk of unsightly curdling.
What was the sink of cold water for? If at any point the custard mixture looks like it is about to split, or even has split (you will know what this means if it happens), plunge the entire saucepan in the cold water, taking care when plunging not to splash water into the custard. This CAN reverse the harmful aesthetic and textual effects of splitting. There is a joke there for a therapists' convention, but I am not a therapist therefore not qualified to make this intervention.
DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE CUSTARD! it won't hurt you. It will make you happy. It may not always work but it will always taste good. It's worth it. Don't be fooled, imitations are there many but rivals there are few. You know it makes sense. Enjoy.
[End of THANGAM BAKERY AND COFFEE SHOP part one. Next week: something for the first course and something without eggs or nuts.]
