With Christmas here, I volunteered to make a trifle for a Christmas evening family gathering. In my stash of 'things to cook one day' was a recipe I'd seen for Stephanie's Christmas Trifle.
I used a store-bought sponge (time-management issue), 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean (didn't have the energy pre-christmas to try to hunt down a vanilla bean) and instead of marsala I used amontillado sherry (an alternative suggested by Stephanie). Otherwise I followed the recipe. Was pretty delicious. I have only made custard from scratch one other time and I wasn't totally happy with my effort but will definitely make it again. Gave me an excuse to buy another kitchen gadget - much to my partner's chagrin, he has some strange idea that we have enough kitchen gadgets!
Oh, the gadget was a cherry pipper.
