Looks good enough to eat!

This past Christmas the preparation of the main meal fell to my husband, as per tradition. So my kitchen job for the day became the dessert menu. I seriously wanted to do something slightly different.

Hubby had already placed his order for a traditional steamed Christmas pudding but I knew that the alcohol containing pud would not be served to the rest of the family. Finally it came to me to do a twist on a black-forest cake and a pavlova seeing as we have our festive season in the middle of summer, it had to be anything besides a baked dessert (obviously plain jelly and ice-cream just wouldn’t do).

Also with a house full of relatives and 3 kids of my own it had to be something I could do quick-quick. If you are overly sensitive you better stop reading just about now before I mention that nothing except the chantilly cream was hand made.

Our local supermarket stocks prebaked and imported sponges so I bought a pack. It contained three thin chocolate sponges which I carefully separated from each other.

On top of the bottom layer I spread some chantilly cream (and I use this term loosely because it did not contain any vanilla or other flavourants; only sugar) which I covered with some sliced strawberries. These got covered in some more cream and the second sponge layer was added. Another spread of chantilly, followed by some sliced tinned peaches. Another layer of cream and the final sponge. At this stage the dessert has some great height, especially since I placed in on a cake plate.

Finally I spread another layer of cream and on to that placed a store bought meringue base. The meringue cavity was filled with a combination of tinned pineapple peaces, tinned gooseberries, sliced banana and sliced strawberry.

To finish it off, I placed some chocolate chips around the edge. I call these chocolate chips simply because they look exactly like Pringle’s chips but are made of chocolate. It still did not quite have the look I was going for so I melted some cooking chocolate and drizzled that over.

The final product is quite huge and I wondered how on Earth I would be able to slice into it to dish it up but it ended up not being that difficult. I simply sliced as I would a cake and gingerly lifted each slice out.

Needless to say, I probably ate almost half the thing myself, but it was also quite popular with my kids and our guests.