Lemon and Ginger Trifle

Last week I succumbed to one of the various viruses that seem so prevalent at this time of year and spent most of the weekend on the sofa (please, no jokes about man flu). However, even in my incapacitated state this delicious dessert was a cinch to rustle up, the whole thing taking only a few minutes. And good golly, was it worth it! Somehow rich, yet tangy and light, it was essentially a hot toddy in cold dessert form. No wonder it did me good.

The key to it is using a good quality lemon curd, with a decent level of acidity to cut through the cream and sweet sponge. If you are enterprising enough to make your own lemon curd, by all means use that.

If you would like a stronger ginger taste, please feel free to add more ground ginger to the cream. Or, you could add some of the syrup from a jar of stem ginger instead of the icing sugar, stirring though some chopped stem ginger at the end.

The portions here are rather generous, perhaps too generous to follow a big meal. Still, somehow we forced it down! If you have a smaller appetite, you could always make this in smaller wine glasses, reducing the quantities of cake, lemon curd and cream. Alternatively, you could double the quantities and make one large trifle to serve four to six people.

Lemon and Ginger Trifle

2 generous portions

Shop bought Madeira cake, about 50g per person
Good quality lemon curd
150ml double cream
1tbsp icing sugar
6 tbsp ginger wine
1 tbsp brandy
1/4 tsp ground ginger, plus extra to sprinkle on top

1. Crumble the sponge into two large wine glasses. Drizzle 2 tbsp of ginger wine per glass over the sponge, making sure you soak every last bit in boozy gingery goodness.

2. Dollop some lemon curd liberally over the sponge. As much as you like really. I used 2 heaped tbps per portion.

3. In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, ginger, ginger wine and brandy then add the cream. Whisk together to a soft peak stage and spoon over the trifle.

4. Dust with extra ground ginger. Some strips of lemon peel might be a nice touch. Or some toasted slivered almonds for some crunch. I could go on...