A week or so back I received a cry for help from Trudi, my oldest friend and chief “willing-to-have-a-go” recipe tester as she was off to a Burns Night party and needed a suggestion for a pudding to take with her.

My mind went straight to trifle with Scotch pancakes instead of sponge and cranachan instead of the whipped cream – apparently it was a delicious success!  She didn’t have any Drambuie so used raspberry liquor instead, which sounds delicious.

So here is a picture of her masterpiece:

For the Scotch pancakes:

2 eggs

8 heaped tablespoons flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

4 heaped tablespoons caster sugar

½ tin condensed milk

grated zest of one medium orange

125g butter, melted and cooled a little

Mix the whole lot together – it will be quite a thick gloopy texture. Spray a hot nonstick pan with flavourless oil and then spoon blobs of the pancake mixture into the pan over a medium heat and cook until the top side starts to bubble, flip and cook for about a further minute then put on a cooling rack whilst you repeat until you’ve used up all the mixture

For the jelly:

250g Raspberries

100g Caster sugar

6 Tablespoons seedless raspberry jam

Whole block of Hartleys raspberry jelly cut into small squares

500ml Orange and raspberry juice (Tropicana do one)

Bring the raspberries, caster sugar and a few tablespoons of the juice to boil and simmer for about 5 minutes. Stir in the jam and then put the whole lot in the blender and whizz til smooth.

Melt the jelly in about 100ml of the juice until all the lumps have gone then add the rest of the juice and stir through thoroughly. Mix in the raspberry sauce from the blender.

For the custard:

(I make quite a thick custard for trifle so that it will set a little)

1 pint milk

1 vanilla pod split

50g caster sugar

6 egg yolks

2 tablespoons Drambuie

other half of the tin of condensed milk

Split the vanilla pod and scrape the seeds into the milk then add the pod to the milk and heat in a saucepan until it is simmering.

Whilst that’s heating, mix the sugar and egg yolks together in a large bowl with a whisk and add the Drambuie and condensed milk. Once the milk comes to a gentle boil, remove it from the heat and pour a little into the egg yolk mix, whisk thoroughly and gradually add the remaining milk. Return to the pan and heat gently until the mixture thickens but don’t let it boil or the eggs will scramble.

Pass through a sieve and then cover with clingfilm – make sure the clingfilm actually touches the surface of the custard so it doesn’t form a skin and allow to cool in the fridge for a few hours before using

For the cranachan:

1 pint double cream

85g porridge oats

7 tbsp whisky/Drambuie

3 tbsp honey

450g raspberries

Toast the oats in a frying pan being careful not to burn them and then soak in the whisky/Drambuie for several hours/overnight.

Lightly whip the cream until it reaches the soft peak stage then fold in the honey, oats and raspberries.

Sugar syrup:

2 parts sugar to 1 part water – dissolve the sugar in just boiled water and then continue to simmer it, add in some raspberries and a dash of whiskey or Drambuie to taste.

To assemble:

Arrange a layer of the pancakes on the bottom of the trifle dish

Soak the pancakes with some sugar syrup

Add a layer of fresh raspberries

Pour over the jelly mix and refrigerate until almost set then add another layer of pancakes and soak with some more sugar syrup

Layer over the cold custard with a few more raspberries

Do a further layer of pancakes and syrup

Spread over the cranachan

I put some little meringues on the top to decorate and then sprinkled over some more raspberries and some shavings of white chocolate, Trudi used some crushed almonds and toasted oats for hers.