Berries Trifle for a very merry Christmas

Christmas Down Under is summer. Lots of fresh berries to make attractive and delicious trifle for parties.

Choose an assortment of different coloured berries. Strawberries and blueberries are more hardy, keeps better, and retains their integrity even with a bit of handling and mixing.   Raspberries are refreshing and serve as good antioxidants but they may not withstand longer keeping time. 

Ingredients

Premium Vanilla Custard (Paul's brand is fine and convenient) 500 g  or cook from scratch with 4 yolk & 1 cup milk
Fresh Cream (either whip from scratch or purchase ready dessert cream) 2 cups
1 punnet each of 3 types of berries (blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, mulberry, boysenberry)
Cherries for topping
Quality meringe (or whip egg white till max peak, pipe and bake)
Castor sugar 1/2 cup
Honey 2 TBS
Liquour - cointreau /grand marnier and brandy (any 2 of these will do) 2 TBS each
Chocolate garnache (melt a block of high cocoa chocolate in double boiler, add 2 TBS full cream, brown sugar and one yolk)
Sponge cake or sponge fingers about 200 - 300 g (pannatone Italian cake-bread is handy for this and pudding recipes)

Method

Prepare to layer a large glass transparent bowl (either special large surface uniform trifle bowl or large mixing bowl).

Firstly, line the bottom with chocolate garnache, followed by half of the sponge cake slices or sponge fingers.
Sprinkle some of the liquor on the sponge.

Spoon half of the fruit. Cover with custard.

Place the remaining sponge cake. Repeat : followed by a dash of liquour, fruit and custard.

Sprinkle some castor sugar.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Can be prepared the day before the party and chilled overnight.

When ready to serve, decorate with whipped cream, honey, cherries, mixture of cherries, meringe as topping.