Haigh’s Individual Black Forest Trifles

• 670g jar Morello cherries
• 2 tablespoons kirsch or cherry brandy
• 500g chocolate cake or brownie*, cut into bite sized chunks
• 8 Amaretti biscuits
• 200ml thickened cream, whipped
• 6 fresh cherries, with stems on
• ¼ cup (20g) flaked almonds, toasted
• 75g Haigh’s Dark chocolate pastilles, chopped

Thick chocolate custard

• 1 cup (250ml) full cream milk
• 300ml thickened cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
• 4 extra large egg yolks
• ¼ cup (55g) caster sugar
• 1 tablespoon cornflour
• 75g Haigh’s Dark chocolate pastilles, chopped

1. For the custard, combine the milk, cream and vanilla together in a medium saucepan over a low heat. Stirring occasionally, slowly bring up to just below boiling point and remove from heat.
2. Meanwhile, beat the yolks, sugar and cornflour together in a medium bowl until mixture is pale and mousse like. Carefully add the hot milk mixture, stirring continuously until combined. Return egg mixture to the saucepan used to heat the milk and place over a low heat, stirring custard continuously until it thickens, which will take about 10 minutes. Remove from heat, add chocolate, stirring occasionally until melted. Place in a bowl, cover custard with plastic wrap and allow to cool before chilling in refrigerator for 2 hours.
3. Meanwhile, strain Morello cherries and place cherry juice in a small saucepan over a medium heat. Reduce by half, remove from heat and add Kirsch, stirring to combine. Allow to cool.
4. To assemble trifles, evenly divide the chocolate cake pieces between 8 glass tumblers and drizzle over the Morello cherry syrup. Spoon over half the Morello cherries and top with chocolate custard. Add remaining Morello cherries and crumble an Amaretti biscuit over the top of each trifle. Finally top each trifle with whipped cream, a fresh cherry, toasted almonds and sprinkle over chopped chocolate. Serve immediately.

NOTE: Haigh’s basic chocolate cake & Haigh’s Chocolate & Hazelnut fudge brownies can be found on the Haigh’s website.