They say, don’t they, that the best thing to do after falling off a horse is to get straight back on. I’ve never fallen off a horse (I’ve never got on one, either) but I fell off a tree in 1982 and have never shinned up one since, and in a similarly defeatist vein I’ve not made a trifle since Christmas 2009.
The trifle came in one of those little kits made by the Birds company. (Why bother making it from scratch when Birds has put all that time and effort, and presumably millions of research hours, into it?) Melting and stirring the jelly crystals was a breeze, likewise the ceremonial breaking up of those oddly-moreish sponge fingers. But…
I came a cropper with the custard.
It burned.
Due to my wife being so intolerant I’d made the custard with Lactofree milk; and even now, whenever my trifle comes up in conversation (which is unexpectedly often) she always advises people, to save them from unnecessary suffering, that you cannot make custard with Lactofree milk. I have to be honest, I think she’s being very charitable – much more likely, the problem wasn’t her milk but my making.
Not that it was apparent there was any problem until the trifle was fully assembled. Even then, having dished it up, my brother was unconvinced that it actually was burnt – to the point of taking half a dozen mouthfuls, each giving him a contradictory opinion (like that blue dress/gold dress meme from a few years ago). Luckily, in the nick of time before the rest of us decided to tuck in he concluded that yes, it WAS burnt – meaning that from that day on, our Christmas Day trifle was consigned to history.
And 2009’s Christmas trifle, of course, was consigned to the bin
Andrew Curnow's Ramblings 