Heston Blumenthal's royal wedding pudding hard to track down? Why not whip up your own?
Queen of the puddings: Lydia with her own version of Heston's royal trifleThe madman with the magic saucepans has done it again. Last December, chef Heston Blumenthal managed to turn Christmas puddings into must-haves by hiding candied oranges inside them. Cue frenzied shoppers snapping them up at a rate of one every 19 seconds while others bid up to 400 on eBay for the sold-out desserts. Now, Heston has come up with a special Royal Trifle to adorn festive tables this Friday. Even though it will set you back 13.99, Waitrose says it expects to sell vast quantities of the celebration dessert.
In fact, the stores already seem to be running short. I headed down to my local Waitrose at the weekend to find the shelves bare. We might get some more in tomorrow, an assistant told me. Disaster! And no chance of buying one on eBay either (who wants a trifle thats been through the post?). On the other hand, unlike a Christmas pudding a trifle is largely a question of assembly. And Hestons trifle is lower on ingredients than the usual kind. It contains, in fact, neither cake, custard, jam, jelly, sherry nor tinned fruit so nothing that my trifle-crazed husband considers essential. Instead, the Royal Trifle is a refined concoction of strawberry compote (infused with orange zest), crumbled amaretti biscuits, Marc de Champagne, meringues and saffron-infused cream, creating a cross between trifle and Eton Mess the meringue dessert beloved of the upper crust.
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Celebration pud: Heston has come up with a special Royal Trifle to adorn festive tables this Friday which Waitrose says will sell in 'vast quantities'If I had to niggle, I found the cream too rich for me and one guest wasnt keen on the saffron flavour. The layer of meringue on top was a design flaw, too the hostess had to bash it so hard to divide it up that the cream and trifle underneath overflowed. But the overall effect was undeniably special.So the question is, if the real thing is selling out, can amateur cooks rustle up Hestons trifle at home? With no recipe to follow (its protected like the Crown Jewels) I deduced the list of ingredients and headed for the supermarket.As Id found the original so heavy on cream, I decided to experiment by making saffron custard instead. A quick sweep of the shelves and I had all I needed: a bag of amaretti biscuits, a pot of cream, another of custard, oranges to provide the zest and fresh strawberries and some dried ones to sprinkle on top.
Tipping the pot of fresh custard into a saucepan, Lydia adds a pinch of saffron and heats it up, stirring nervously, left, and adds it to the compote, right
As for the meringues, a true chef would have made their own from egg whites and sugar. But to keep things simple I found some perfectly serviceable ready-made ones on offer. Altogether, the ingredients cost me 12.60 and gave me more than enough for two trifles so mine was already more thrifty than Hestons version. For extra authenticity, I even went round to my foodie friends house and borrowed the plastic trifle bowl that Hestons pud had come in. Back! at home , I dug out the dusty saffron lurking at the back of my spice cupboard, found a brandy bottle left over from Christmas, and set to work. Tipping the pot of fresh custard into a saucepan, I added a pinch of saffron and heated it up, stirring nervously.
Lydia folds the cream onto the layers she has painstakingly piled in a bowl, left, and after placing the meringue, she begins the finishing touches, right
The end result was a rather off-putting bright mustard yellow reminiscent of Birds Custard, but the taste enhanced by the subtle flavour of the saffron was stunning. Thats like restaurant custard, my awestruck husband said. Yuk! chorused the children, who have conservative tastes. Then I turned my attention to the amaretti. A few bashes of the bag with my rolling pin and they were crushed to smithereens. Hestons trifle has a strawberry compote at the bottom. Improvising in the absence of a recipe, I hulled two punnets of strawberries and put them in a saucepan with a tiny bit of water, some sugar and some orange rind, and stewed them for about ten minutes. Finally, I added the slosh of brandy. It wasnt Marc de Champagne a strong colourless spirit made as a by-product of champagne production but I wasnt willing to fork out 20 for a whole bottle just to add a slosh to my trifle. Besides, could anyone really tell the difference through inch-thick mouthfuls of cream and custard? Only Heston himself, I suppose.
Not a bad effort: The end result was possibly a bit less sophisticated than Heston's version, but much more festive and far cheaper - even factoring in the saffron and the slosh of brandyWhile everything was chilling in the fridge, I whip! ped the cream. Now, all I had to do was layer it all together: first the compote, then the custard, then the biscuits, cream and the meringues. The entire process not counting the cooling time took only 15 minutes, so I also whipped up a child-friendly version without saffron or brandy to use up the leftovers.On to the finishing touches. Hestons trifle is topped with rose petals, caramel almonds and dried strawberry jewels for decoration.It looks pretty, but here I felt improvements could be made. For one thing, Im not keen on nuts and prefer flowers to stay in the garden rather than invading my plate. More importantly, shouldnt a royal trifle carry a patriotic adornment? I toyed briefly with the idea of attempting portraits of the couple in hundreds and thousands, but was worried my artistic skills werent up to the challenge.
Heston's Royal Trifle is a refined concoction of strawberry compote (infused with orange zest), crumbled amaretti biscuits, Marc de Champagne, meringues and saffron-infused cream, creating a cross between trifle and Eton MessIn the end, I settled for an approximation of the Union flag picked out in dried strawberries and blue and pink sugar balls. Picking out the blue sugar balls from a multi-coloured box was the most labour-intensive part of the recipe.The end result looked rather good. It was possibly a bit less sophisticated than Hestons version, but much more festive. More importantly, it worked out far cheaper even factoring in the saffron and the slosh of brandy. But Id happily have paid a premium for the ingredients just for the pleasure of showing off to my nearest and dearest about making it myself. But as we know, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. So before I finished off the decorating, I took a sneaky spoonful. It was all there: the aromatic sweetness of the strawberries, the rich smokiness of the saffron custard, the nutty crunch of the amaretti ! and the warming kick of the brandy, topped off with cream and easy-to-manage mouthfuls of meringue. The combination was quite simply sensational. Truly, a pudding fit for royalty even if it wouldnt quite pass muster with its bonkers bald inventor.
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