The first time I had rhubarb and custard together was in a boiled sweet from a big jar in my mum’s corner shop. You could flip the sweet in your mouth and rub the flavour you wanted with your tongue. Too tart? Flip to the custard side. Too creamy? Flip again. It was one of the best ways to spend 10 minutes as a seven-year-old in the early 1990s. A few decades on, a lot has changed. Mum no longer has a corner shop, I don’t love boiled sweets any more, but eating rhubarb and custard is still a fantastic way to spend 10 minutes (at the very least).

Rhubarb and custard trifle

You’ll need two large, roughly 30cm x 40cm oven trays and a 20cm trifle bowl. You can make the custard ahead of time, even the day before, up to the point when you add the whipped cream.

Prep 10 min
Cook 1 hr
Cool 30 min+
Serves 8

1.2kg forced pink rhubarb, topped, tailed and cut on an angle into 4cm pieces
200g caster sugar
3 oranges, zest of 1 finely grated, then all 3 juiced, to get 150ml
3 large egg yolks
1 tbsp vanilla paste
10g cornflour (1⅓ tbsp)
1 big pinch fine sea salt
120ml whole milk
600ml double cream
30 trifle sponge fingers
30g flaked almonds, toasted

Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Put the rhubarb in an oven tray, add 150g sugar and all the orange zest and juice, then toss. Arrange the rhubarb into a single layer (you may need a second tray), cover tightly with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Carefully lift off the foil and check the rhubarb with the tip of a sharp knife: the rhubarb shouldn’t resist the knife at all, but it should keep its shape. If not, cover and bake again, checking for doneness every five minutes.

Once the rhubarb is cooked, take the tray out of the oven and leave to cool. After about half an hour, once it has cooled, drain off the liquid into a jug and set aside. Store both the rhubarb and juice separately, covered, in the fridge.

In the meantime, make the custard. Mix the egg yolks, vanilla paste, cornflour, the remaining 50g sugar and salt in a medium to large heatproof bowl. In a saucepan, heat the milk and 240ml of the cream, stirring regularly until small bubbles start to appear. Very slowly, pour this into the egg yolk mix in the heatproof bowl, whisking all the time. When properly mixed in, pour the lot back into the pan, and heat on a low to medium heat, whisking all the while, until the custard thickens. Take off the heat and pour into a heatproof bowl; cover the surface of the custard with a circle of nonstick baking paper, to prevent a skin from forming, and leave to cool completely.

Whisk the remaining 360ml cream to soft peaks, fold 120g of it into the cooled custard, then transfer to a container, cover and chill until needed.

To assemble, pack 15 sponges tightly in a single layer on their sides (rather than on their backs) in the base of the trifle dish. Drizzle over around 150ml of the rhubarb juice, then add half the rhubarb, followed by half the custard. Repeat the layers again (sponge, juice, rhubarb, custard), then finish with the remaining whipped cream. Sprinkle the toasted almonds on top and keep in the fridge until ready to serve.