Christmas Trifle

My family's traditional dessert for Christmas dinner, a show-stopping English trifle. The "recipe" is ever-so-adaptable but here I share our essentials, a good cake (we use panettone), homemade custard, lots of fruit (mostly canned, it's winter!), pillows of whipped cream – and one ingredient I fought against for years but finally adopted as my own, because, well, aren't our mothers always right? To make my dog go instantly still, I rub her shin bone. To make grown men (and women and children) go weak in the knees and instantly silent, I bring out the trifle bowl filled with a messy concoction of cake, custard, fruit and whipped cream. And Jello. Yes, that Jello . My mother insisted that Jello inserted the right coldness and wetness into trifle. A foodie from a young age, I rolled my eyes in protest. One year, I made my own gelatin with Knox powder and fruit juice. Mom rolled her eyes in protest. The year Mom died, in tribute I made our Christmas trifle