Rachel Allen shares the recipes for Ballymaloe’s sherry trifle — plus a chocolate biscuit cake and ginger pud

If you’re looking for something chocolatey and super easy to whip up, then I recommend this very festive looking chocolate biscuit cake, recipe below. I’ve used Maltesers and crushed up Crunchie bars as well as the biscuits but feel free, if you wish, to replace them with mini marshmallows and white chocolate chips. If you’re looking for something to make and give as a sweet gift, then this is a winner as it can be wrapped up and transported easily.

For a warm pudding this Christmas, try the ginger treacle pudding, also below. I recommend using a jar of stem ginger in syrup for this — Biona Organic do a great one, available in many supermarkets and health food shops. Make sure to cook this at a good steady light boil and keep an eye on the water in the saucepan that it doesn’t evaporate and burn — it should just come halfway up the sides of the pudding bowl to steam it properly all the way through.

Gooey and rich with a great ginger kick, when cooked and turned out, the pudding will have a ginger and treacle sauce oozing down the sides.

Now that’s divine.

Ballymaloe sherry trifle

Serves 6-8

For the Swiss roll, you will need:

• 2 tablespoons melted butter

• 2 tablespoons caster sugar

• 4 eggs

• 125g caster sugar

• 2 tablespoons warm water

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 125g plain flour

• 6 tablespoons raspberry jam

• A 25 x 38cm Swiss roll tin For the pastry cream, you will need:

• 175ml milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 eggs, separated

• 1 egg

• 100g caster sugar

• 25g plain flour To finish:

• 150ml sweet or medium sherry

• 600ml whipped cream (measure when whipped)

• A 1.7 litre glass serving bowl

​1 First make the Swiss roll. Preheat the oven to 190C, 375F, Gas 5.

​2 Brush a little of the melted butter in the base of the tin (this allows the paper to stick to the tin), then line the base and sides with parchment paper. Now brush the base and sides of the tin with the remaining melted butter and dust with the 2 tablespoons of caster sugar.

​3 Whisk the eggs and the 125g of caster sugar together in a large bowl or in an electric food mixer until light and fluffy, then whisk in the water and the vanilla extract.

​4 Sift the flour, about one third at a time, and fold it into the mixture.

​5 Pour the mixture gently into the prepared Swiss roll tin and bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes, or until the centre of the cake is slightly springy and the edges have shrunk a little from the sides of the tin. Use a small sharp knife to free all the edges of the Swiss roll from the tin.

​6 Place a sheet of parchment paper on the Swiss roll and flip it out onto this piece of paper, peeling off and discarding the baked parchment paper. Spread the raspberry jam over the sponge, and then with the longest side facing you, roll up the Swiss roll away from you, and set aside.

​7 Next make the pastry cream. Place the milk in a saucepan and bring up to the boil, then remove from heat. In a bowl, whisk the vanilla extract, the two egg yolks and the whole egg together with the sugar until light and thick. Whisk in the flour, then pour in the milk, whisking as you add the milk. Pour the mixture into a clean saucepan and cook over a very gentle heat, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. If it gets lumpy at any stage, use a whisk to beat it briefly. Remove from the heat and place in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk the two egg whites until they form stiff peaks, then fold in the thickened milk and egg mixture while still warm. Set aside and allow to cool before using.

8 Once the pastry cream has cooled, you can assemble the trifle. Cut the Swiss roll into slices 1.5cm thick and line the glass bowl with the slices so that the swirls can be seen from the outside, sprinkling with sherry as you go. Pour in some pastry cream, add the rest of the Swiss roll, then sprinkle with the rest of the sherry. Spread the rest of the pastry cream over the top, cover and leave for a few hours or overnight.

​9 To serve, spread whipped cream over the top and serve as it is or if you wish, decorate with silver balls or with glacé cherries.

Top Tip The Swiss roll with the raspberry jam can be baked in advance and frozen, if you wish.

Rachel Recommends The Swiss roll with the raspberry jam can be baked in advance and frozen, if you wish.

Festive iced chocolate biscuit cake

Serves 10-12

You will need:

• 175g butter

• 325g dark chocolate, chopped or in drops

• Pinch of salt

• 100g golden syrup

• 250g digestive biscuits

• 70g Crunchie bar

• 70g Maltesers

• A 1.2 litre/ 2 pint pudding bowl or something similar For the icing, you will need:

• 175g icing sugar

• 2-3 tablespoons boiling water

​1 Place the butter, the dark chocolate, the pinch of salt and the golden syrup in a bowl sitting over a saucepan with water a few centimetres deep in the bottom. Place on the heat and allow the water under the bowl to gently boil. When the chocolate mixture has melted, take it off the heat and set the bowl aside.

​2 Break the biscuits and the Crunchie bar into chunks and add into the bowl with the Maltesers. Mix well together.

​3 Line the pudding bowl with a double layer of cling film (or you can brush the bowl with a little sunflower oil) then tip the mixture in, levelling it out on top. Cover and place in the fridge to chill and set for at least two hours.

​4 Turn the chocolate biscuit cake out of the bowl onto a serving plate, then make the icing. Sift the icing sugar into a mixing bowl and add in just a little of the water at first, then mix well. Add a little more water until the icing is a thick consistency but almost pourable.

​5 Tip the icing over the top of the chocolate biscuit cake and allow it to slowly drip down the sides.

​6 Decorate, if you wish, with some freeze-dried raspberries or hundreds and thousands, or candied almonds, or whatever takes your fancy! The cake will keep in the fridge for a week if it’s not devoured immediately.

Steamed ginger treacle pudding

Serves 8-10

You will need:

• 50ml treacle

• 50ml ginger syrup (from the stem ginger jar — see below)

• 125g butter, softened

• 110g soft brown sugar such as soft dark brown sugar or light muscovado sugar

• 2 eggs, whisked together

• 150g self-raising flour, sifted

• 2 tablespoons milk

• 75g stem ginger, finely chopped

• 1.2 litre (2 pint) pudding bowl buttered with 1 teaspoon of soft butter

​1Mix the treacle and the stem ginger syrup together in a bowl and then pour into the bottom of the buttered pudding bowl.

​2 Cream the butter and the sugar together in a bowl or in an electric food mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs a little at a time, then mix in the self-raising flour and the milk.

​3 Stir in the chopped stem ginger and spoon the mixture into the pudding basin to come two-thirds of the way up, smoothing the top with the back of the spoon. (The treacle will come up the inside of the basin, so be careful not to mix it into the cake mixture.)

​4 Butter a piece of parchment paper and fold a pleat across the centre. Cover the bowl with the paper, butter side down, and secure with string under the lip of the bowl. Place a saucer in a deep saucepan and pour in enough boiling water to be about 6-8cm deep. Sit the pudding bowl on the saucer and cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid. Simmer on a low heat for one and a quarter to one and a half hours or until the top of the pudding is springy to the touch and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remember to top up the water if necessary while it’s cooking, it mustn’t boil dry.

​5 Remove the pudding bowl from the saucepan, carefully loosen the pudding by running a spatula around the inside of the bowl and turn out onto a warm serving plate (one that is wider than the top of the basin). The treacle sauce will ooze down the sides of the pudding

​6 Spoon over any sauce remaining in the bowl and serve with ice-cream, softly whipped cream or custard, whichever takes your Christmas fancy.