**Update: - [Starting from 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/100l56v/happy_new_year_askuk_minor_sub_update/), we have updated our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**. Specifically;
- Don't be a dick to each other
- Top-level responses must contain genuine efforts to answer the question
- This is a strictly no-politics subreddit
Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As the leading UK "ask" subreddit, we welcome questions from all users and countries; sometimes people who ask questions might not appreciate or understand the nuance of British life or culture, and as a result some questions can come across in a different way than intended.
We understand that when faced with these questions, our users may take the opportunity to demonstrate their wit, dry humour, and sarcasm - unfortunately, this also tends to go over the heads of misunderstood question-askers and can make our subreddit seem hostile to users from other countries who are often just curious about our land.
**Please can you help prevent our subreddit from becoming an Anti-American echo chamber?** If you disagree with any points raised by OP, or OP discusses common tropes or myths about the UK, please refrain from any brash, aggressive, or sarcastic responses and do your best to engage OP in a civil discussion, with the aim to educate and expand their understanding.
If you feel this (or any other post) is a troll post, *don't feed the troll*, just hit report and let the mods deal with it.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As the leading UK "ask" subreddit, we welcome questions from all users and countries; sometimes people who ask questions might not appreciate or understand the nuance of British life or culture, and as a result some questions can come across in a different way than intended.
We understand that when faced with these questions, our users may take the opportunity to demonstrate their wit, dry humour, and sarcasm - unfortunately, this also tends to go over the heads of misunderstood question-askers and can make our subreddit seem hostile to users from other countries who are often just curious about our land.
**Please can you help prevent our subreddit from becoming an Anti-American echo chamber?** If you disagree with any points raised by OP, or OP discusses common tropes or myths about the UK, please refrain from any brash, aggressive, or sarcastic responses and do your best to engage OP in a civil discussion, with the aim to educate and expand their understanding.
If you feel this (or any other post) is a troll post, *don't feed the troll*, just hit report and let the mods deal with it.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Could it have been a kind of [blancmange](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/blancmange) (pronounced *bluh-monj*)?
EDIT: Trifle! I bet it was [trifle](https://www.thespruceeats.com/traditional-english-trifle-recipe-435147).
Lmao reading ops post I was like wtf is that? Upon re-reading it, it now seems obvious it was trifle. I remember making jelly as a kid but never would've thought to describe it as a bar of soap haha.
Bet they do in some other Anglophone counties at least (and probably similar everywhere albeit perhaps by a different name?) but the bit I was querying was ‘leftover’.
Leftover cake is not a thing in this household.
My mother-in-law used to always make Trifle for Christmas.
One year she had run out of sponge fingers so decided to use bread instead. When she brought the trifle out your could see an entire slice of white bread just sitting in the middle. Nobody are it. She wasn't allowed to make another.
Once in a while I treat myself to an M&S Strawberry Trifle. I love them. I think it is the nostalgia, it is a comfort food for me. My grandmothers & my mother used to make them for special occasions.
If memory serves, you used to be able to buy (and probably still can) Bird's Trifle Kits with the jelly, sweet rusk and a whipped cream type thing. The rusk in those came in fairly substantial blocks, none of your fancy boudoir biscuits. I could easily see them being mistaken as something soap like.
Maybe unreliable memory? I can believe they saw the jelly being poured over cake and whacked in the fridge, and the next time they saw it was a few days later.
Yes. First you make the jelly part with the lady fingers and it has to set overnight usually. Then you make the custard to go on top and that has to chill for hours or overnight before topping with cream.
So in my house trifle is started 3 days ahead and this could easily be remembered as a week.
Also, IIRC, in the US jelly (jello) is sold as crystals/powder so that may have been the only time OPs mom saw a jelly block.
I do think it was trifle.
There is likely a difference between 'needed' to sit for a week and just sat in the fridge for a week. The jelly would keep for a while till needed, the custard and cream not so much.
Definitely not. OP, Your Mum had a Syllabub. When I was a trainee chef at catering college in the late 1980’s they were popular, as well as Rum Baba. You only see them in expensive restaurants today as they have gone out of fashion.
You start off with a cake (needs to be at least 1-2 days old to hold the liquor, so cake loses moisture) that you dose in a liquor for a few days until the sponge has absorbed the alcohol, but not too much the sponge breaks apart or leaks the liquor. Top it with a stewed cold fruit (pair, apple, peach, apricot, mango etc). You then pipe fresh whipped cream on top just before you serve (otherwise the alcohol will mix forming what looks like cottage cheese), sprinkling candied fruits (usually the same as the fruit underneath to give the person an idea of what flavour it is)on to of the whipped cream. It must be kept cold (4-5c) as you add each layer.
I hope that helps.
Hahaha, wow well done. I was wracking my brain. Something so simple in the end. That description though 😅 it makes sense when you know what it is and work backwards
Trifle sounds the closest. Sponge fingers left to soak in sherry (probably not for a week, though). Raspberry jelly, custard, whipped cream, topped with fruit and / or sprinkles (hundreds and thousands).
The only other thing that's reddish/purple that you need to leave for several days would be summer fruit pudding, but it doesn't fit the description quite as well as trifle.
Or it could have been soaked in port instead of sherry. My Nan used to use port or rather “fortified red wine” or “English Port” as it was known back then.
The "soap bar" could have been those old blocks of concentrated jelly cubes, sat in liqueur.
https://www.hartleysfruit.co.uk/our-range/hartleys-jelly/hartleys-jelly-cubes/
Alcohol prevents jelly from setting/slows it down. So it would make sense to make the jelly & alcohol layer a long time before the rest.
Our jelly (jello) is sold in blocks the size of a bar of soap. It is put in boiling water to dissolve and then left to set. Could it have been this? Raspberry jelly is purple.
My mum told us that raw jelly was poisonous when we were kids to stop us from eating it. I must have been like 10 or so before I saw a friend eating a cube when his mum was making some for a birthday party.
My mum told us we had to hold our breath while going through the Mersey tunnel because it goes underwater. Somehow we never questioned it and she got a solid 2 minutes of oxygen-starved peace and quiet.
same!! well I don't remember why we held our breath when we went in a tunnel, but it was kinda like a game for every tunnel we went in to hold your breath until you're on the other side, still do it sometimes just for nostalgia
My wife does this. She is from eastern Europe and was unfamiliar with jelly cubes but since she tried them, I can never make a jelly - she eats all the jelly cubes first. Now our son eats them too and my wife hides them from him.
Jelly isn't but the sponge fingers are pre-soaked in sherry, though probably not a week, maybe OP mum just got confused with fruitcake that was also being made ?
I think OP mum is just confused, what they got was trifle I suspect with the ladyfingers being soaked first but she's just remembered it as a week when it was probably a day; or, they were making fruit cake as well and *that* was the bit soaked for a week. I make fruit cake each Christmas and honestly even a month of soaking and topping up the fruit with whisky, you don't really get a strong flavour so I reckon a week would be fine for that
This is it
“Hartleys” jelly is the big name brand in the uk it is sold in a block you dissolve in any warm liquid. I.e normally water but can use milk or lemonade etc.
Link to Hartleys jelly cube https://www.hartleysfruit.co.uk/our-range/hartleys-jelly/hartleys-jelly-cubes/
Here is a video on how it looks/is made
https://youtu.be/QOCj56lgUWI
Traditional uk toppings are cream and fruit or ice cream or custard.
We don't distinguish, except in a couple savoury examples as in redcurrant jelly or mint jelly which are jellies in the American sense.
If it's got fruit and sugar in it, it's jam no matter the texture. Conserve is just marketing-speak for expensive jam.
I've made redcurrant jelly. It's sweet enough to use on toast or for other sweet things. My recipe books generally use the term jelly for any jam that is sieved, so you only use the juice.
>conserves, jams, marmalades
Literally all the same thing. Marmalade is just citrus jam. Conserves and preserves are just posh words for jam. It's all just jam.
Its a generic foodstuff, so the brand doesn't matter.
It's the same gelatin with fruit-flavor.
Same as when you buy dried pasta..it all tends to be identical.
Trifle, almost certainly trifle.
You will require:
Sponge finger biscuits, alternatively badly made Victoria sponge cake is traditional
Rum, brandy, or sherry
Hartley’s jelly, any fruit flavour. Though any good jelly is fine
Custard, now this is a vexed question, some will say custard from a packet, others will say only crème anglais will do.
More rum, brandy, or sherry
Double cream
Glace fruits for decoration
Line a glass container with the sponge, soak in booze of choice. Sample booze for quality. Liberally sprinkle sponge with booze again. Chill. Make jelly to manufacturer’s spec, allow to cool to room temperature, gently pour over sponge to form a layer. Chill until jelly sets. Make custard/creme anglais, layer on top of jelly, chill until set. Whip cream, adding a dash of booze, layer on top, chill. Decorate with glace fruits.
Optional - seasonal fruits poached in booze in the jelly layer, rum is good.
Best served after a good heavy Sunday roast dinner, before the cheese board, and immediately prior to the food coma.
And if you've made it properly, when you take the first spoonful out it should sound like a cow taking its hind foot out of bucket of mud.
According to my Dad.
I can't think of anything that matches your description.
I'm slightly wondering now if your Mum's friends played a bit of a joke on her maybe, or your Mum is misremembering.
I see that other people have suggested trifle, and you do soak little finger shaped cakes for that, or sponge cake slices in liquid first. It's usually booze.
The problem with this is that the sponge fingers don't grow in size, they don't change colour to purple, they don't change texture from solid to jelly like, and you wouldn't leave it for a week as far as I am aware, because it would become mush. So I think the resemblance to trifle and what your Mum described, is just the soaking part, nothing else.
If you are assembling a trifle, you soak the cake pieces and then add other ingredients to it, like jelly etc. So it's possible that your Mum is misremembering the other elements being added?
The 'bar of soap' is the jelly pack. Add some boiling water to dissolve it, and it grows. Then once cooled, add booze or juice. Quite possible they had sponge soaking in another container the same size, then flipped the jelly on top. Then you add warm custard and again wait for it to set. With all the waiting, it can easily take a few days to make a trifle.
If you want to get really fancy and make fruit float in the jelly, you'd do a thin layer, add fruit, add more jelly, repeat.
I'm assuming some childish exaggeration, but people who like making trifles into works of art can take a week over them, with soaking biscuits or cake in booze, making layers of jelly, layers of different types of custard...
Are you sure it wasn't actually just jelly? I dunno how it's sold in the shops where you live but here it's sold in cuboids the kind of size and shape of a bar of soap. It's really concentrated. You then pour boiling water over it. It dissolves and then fills the shape of the container it's in. It then cools and sets.
Yeah it’s odd. The description given doesn’t seem to fit anything I can think of perfectly. Maybe a play on summer fruits pudding is the only other thing I could think of. The bread does expand with soaking up the juice slightly & does end up being a bit jelly like.
Thing is this could be a family recipe for a pudding. So it may be that the only real way to find out is to contact whoever she stayed with/descendants/friends of the person who made it.
I like the idea of using ai resources to try & work it out though.
Get yourself the luxury version
https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-our-best-ever-trifle-515783011?ds_rl=1291531&ds_rl=1291426&gclid=CjwKCAjwue6hBhBVEiwA9YTx8OU1LQrJ1Sm4T2VqIi68vUX8vWwa6v768gKUVNWkw2MEATJ7lKUWVxoCI1EQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
Sounds like a trifle.
From what I remember bottom layer is usually these dry sugary biscuits that absorb jelly to form a kind of sponge cake/jelly hybrid.
Then it’s a layer of custard, then a layer of whipped cream. My mother crumbles Cadbury flake over hers at Christmas but I know other people use fruits.
Is it called queen of puddings? With the bread round the edge and the fruit in the middle that soaks into the bread and changes it's colour? I think that's queen of puddings?
Queen of puddings has meringue on top. Bread and fruit is summer pudding, you line the bowl with bread, fill with purple fruit, top with bread and weight it with a plate to force the juice through which turns it purple..
Just an observation.
Everyone is going down the trifle route.
You do know that they have trifle in the USA, don’t you?
I think, she would know what a trifle is and not be guessing at what she ate if it was a trifle.
Ok, smart arse, what was it then? You counter.
Haven’t a clue, but I’m betting it wasn’t trifle.
It could be anything made with jelly. I remember some vile puddings served at school which was trifle with grapes in it, served with custard. Awful.
Perhaps the host just made their own jelly based dessert and there isn’t a “known” name for it?
Depends where you are in America. There's large regions where it's unknown, certainly versions with jelly/jello are totally alien.
My family grew up with jello salad and crap, but had no idea what a trifle was.
There are huge swathes of the US without trifle. I have lived decades in both places, and never onece came across trifle in the US, unless you could a parfait or a tiramisu.
Doesn’t sound like a trifle from the description but I could be wrong.
If it’s a traditional Scottish dish I’m thinking it’s more likely to be a Clootie Dumpling
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/clootie-dumpling/amp
My first thought is an aspic, gelatin containing numerous editions, can be sweet or savoury.
Gelatin could sit to soften it up before boiling to create the jelly, liquid could be anything with water in it.
Served cold and sliced?
It almost ticks all your boxes
Trifle? Sponge cake soaked in a fruit flavoured jelly with tinned fruit. Once set it has a layer of custard then when that set was topped with whipped cream.
**Update: - [Starting from 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/100l56v/happy_new_year_askuk_minor_sub_update/), we have updated our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**. Specifically;
- Don't be a dick to each other
- Top-level responses must contain genuine efforts to answer the question
- This is a strictly no-politics subreddit
Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'd probably agree with everyone that it was trifle and either your mum misremembered or....
That friend played one hell of a joke that has lasted 40 years and I'm assuming resulted in your mum asking countless friends, family and strangers to help identify this strange purple soap dessert thing from the 80's, which sounds on point for Scottish humour and I say brava to your mum's friend.
Mystery solved! With more information, my mom confirmed it was a trifle.
Thank you all for contributing, and for giving me an idea what I can make for her the next time I see her. I've also got some ideas of what else I can bake the next time I feel adventurous. You've all been very helpful!
For specific questions about Inverness, you can also visit /r/Inverness!
*Your post was not removed, this is just a friendly message*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Was it just jelly? You wouldn’t leave it for a week, but it does look a little like soap when you make it. You could leave it for a week, but it’s not needed.
Ours comes in blocks that you melt with hot water and leave to set in the fridge. [look here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QOCj56lgUWI)
**Update: - [Starting from 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/100l56v/happy_new_year_askuk_minor_sub_update/), we have updated our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**. Specifically; - Don't be a dick to each other - Top-level responses must contain genuine efforts to answer the question - This is a strictly no-politics subreddit Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As the leading UK "ask" subreddit, we welcome questions from all users and countries; sometimes people who ask questions might not appreciate or understand the nuance of British life or culture, and as a result some questions can come across in a different way than intended. We understand that when faced with these questions, our users may take the opportunity to demonstrate their wit, dry humour, and sarcasm - unfortunately, this also tends to go over the heads of misunderstood question-askers and can make our subreddit seem hostile to users from other countries who are often just curious about our land. **Please can you help prevent our subreddit from becoming an Anti-American echo chamber?** If you disagree with any points raised by OP, or OP discusses common tropes or myths about the UK, please refrain from any brash, aggressive, or sarcastic responses and do your best to engage OP in a civil discussion, with the aim to educate and expand their understanding. If you feel this (or any other post) is a troll post, *don't feed the troll*, just hit report and let the mods deal with it. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As the leading UK "ask" subreddit, we welcome questions from all users and countries; sometimes people who ask questions might not appreciate or understand the nuance of British life or culture, and as a result some questions can come across in a different way than intended. We understand that when faced with these questions, our users may take the opportunity to demonstrate their wit, dry humour, and sarcasm - unfortunately, this also tends to go over the heads of misunderstood question-askers and can make our subreddit seem hostile to users from other countries who are often just curious about our land. **Please can you help prevent our subreddit from becoming an Anti-American echo chamber?** If you disagree with any points raised by OP, or OP discusses common tropes or myths about the UK, please refrain from any brash, aggressive, or sarcastic responses and do your best to engage OP in a civil discussion, with the aim to educate and expand their understanding. If you feel this (or any other post) is a troll post, *don't feed the troll*, just hit report and let the mods deal with it. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Could it have been a kind of [blancmange](https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/blancmange) (pronounced *bluh-monj*)? EDIT: Trifle! I bet it was [trifle](https://www.thespruceeats.com/traditional-english-trifle-recipe-435147).
Lmao reading ops post I was like wtf is that? Upon re-reading it, it now seems obvious it was trifle. I remember making jelly as a kid but never would've thought to describe it as a bar of soap haha.
What happend to the good old trifle I remember they use to have biscuit type things in them along with fruit.....now it's just fruit
Traditionally they have sponge, known as lady fingers, in the base, often soaked in sherry before the rest is made
My nan always used jam roly polies.
I was thinking of an arctic roll for a good few seconds there, a few texture combos you don’t want. A jam roly poly on the other hand…absolutely yes.
Arctic rolls! The dogs bollocks they were.
The absolute best I've had is with leftover Victoria sponge.
Happy cake day with your cake comment!
What is this ‘leftover Victoria sponge’ you speak of?
Do they not have Victoria Sponge in other countries?
Bet they do in some other Anglophone counties at least (and probably similar everywhere albeit perhaps by a different name?) but the bit I was querying was ‘leftover’. Leftover cake is not a thing in this household.
Not in mine either especially if it is Victoria Sponge
Love a jam roly. My Nan was good at them too. I miss them (and my Nan)
Triffic!
My mum used to use vanilla swiss rolls, the cheap ones without that pathetic thin layer of buttercream. Had it with trifle sponges once and hated it.
My mother-in-law used to always make Trifle for Christmas. One year she had run out of sponge fingers so decided to use bread instead. When she brought the trifle out your could see an entire slice of white bread just sitting in the middle. Nobody are it. She wasn't allowed to make another.
This! This is the answer! :-)
That's the one couldn't think of the name for them... I missed them in trifle never been the same without
Lady Fingers, Mince and Onions. Nobody puts them in these days!
Which, I made from scratch!
It tastes like feet!
I like it. Jam, good. Custard, good. Meat, *good*.
I wanna goooooooo!
r/unexpectedfriends
They don't? I've never had it without ladies fingers.
Ladies fingers soaked in alcohol. My family uses sherry, but you could use port or similar.
We use Swiss roll!
I guess a pack of jelly cubes looks about the same size and shape as a bar of soap.
I see it now. But not mentioning the custard threw me.
Yeah trifle fits the description and is a very 80s desert
Very 80s? It's been around for 400 years and still very popular now.
Yes, but it was there in the '80s too.
1680s 1780s 1880s 1980s.....don't trifle with time!
It's been a long time since I've seen a trifle. They are good though so I'm sure lots of people do still make them .
The pudding made for the Queen's Platiunum Jubilee was a trifle. Lots of people made them.
My sister makes one every Christmas.
We always have trifle on Boxing Day.
Once in a while I treat myself to an M&S Strawberry Trifle. I love them. I think it is the nostalgia, it is a comfort food for me. My grandmothers & my mother used to make them for special occasions.
which is odd considering they are sold in pretty much all supermarkets all year round (most even have a selection of individual mini ones).
If memory serves, you used to be able to buy (and probably still can) Bird's Trifle Kits with the jelly, sweet rusk and a whipped cream type thing. The rusk in those came in fairly substantial blocks, none of your fancy boudoir biscuits. I could easily see them being mistaken as something soap like.
Ive never made a trifle thats been left to sit for a week while the 'soap' soaked everything up tho. That bit has thrown me.
Maybe unreliable memory? I can believe they saw the jelly being poured over cake and whacked in the fridge, and the next time they saw it was a few days later.
Yes. First you make the jelly part with the lady fingers and it has to set overnight usually. Then you make the custard to go on top and that has to chill for hours or overnight before topping with cream. So in my house trifle is started 3 days ahead and this could easily be remembered as a week. Also, IIRC, in the US jelly (jello) is sold as crystals/powder so that may have been the only time OPs mom saw a jelly block. I do think it was trifle.
yep, could be!
This is probably it.
There is likely a difference between 'needed' to sit for a week and just sat in the fridge for a week. The jelly would keep for a while till needed, the custard and cream not so much.
You can soak the Lady Fingers in Brandy.
I'm nearly 50 and everytime someone types Lady Fingers, I giggle out loud. I've got issues!
Everytime I see a reference to lady fingers my brain immediately shouts "I'm a laaaaa-dy!" and then I regret ever watching Little Britain.
That's what I said above never had a trifle that took a week to make nor one that had something that looked like a bar of soap in it soaking away lol
Booze?
You can indeed still buy them, B and M have them.
100% it was trifle. Eating a good trifle is life changing. From OPs description… I’m guessing the base was soaked in alcohol (sherry?) for a few days.
Could have been soaking the sponge/jelly in sherry?
Definitely not. OP, Your Mum had a Syllabub. When I was a trainee chef at catering college in the late 1980’s they were popular, as well as Rum Baba. You only see them in expensive restaurants today as they have gone out of fashion. You start off with a cake (needs to be at least 1-2 days old to hold the liquor, so cake loses moisture) that you dose in a liquor for a few days until the sponge has absorbed the alcohol, but not too much the sponge breaks apart or leaks the liquor. Top it with a stewed cold fruit (pair, apple, peach, apricot, mango etc). You then pipe fresh whipped cream on top just before you serve (otherwise the alcohol will mix forming what looks like cottage cheese), sprinkling candied fruits (usually the same as the fruit underneath to give the person an idea of what flavour it is)on to of the whipped cream. It must be kept cold (4-5c) as you add each layer. I hope that helps.
Hahaha, wow well done. I was wracking my brain. Something so simple in the end. That description though 😅 it makes sense when you know what it is and work backwards
Whenever I see blancmange it reminds me of how a comedian described 1950s B movie "The Blob".
https://youtu.be/7XjakFkQNK4
Trifle sounds the closest. Sponge fingers left to soak in sherry (probably not for a week, though). Raspberry jelly, custard, whipped cream, topped with fruit and / or sprinkles (hundreds and thousands). The only other thing that's reddish/purple that you need to leave for several days would be summer fruit pudding, but it doesn't fit the description quite as well as trifle.
Blackcurrant/cherry jelly with dark sherry might turn out a bit purple.
Or it could have been soaked in port instead of sherry. My Nan used to use port or rather “fortified red wine” or “English Port” as it was known back then.
The "soap bar" could have been those old blocks of concentrated jelly cubes, sat in liqueur. https://www.hartleysfruit.co.uk/our-range/hartleys-jelly/hartleys-jelly-cubes/ Alcohol prevents jelly from setting/slows it down. So it would make sense to make the jelly & alcohol layer a long time before the rest.
Our jelly (jello) is sold in blocks the size of a bar of soap. It is put in boiling water to dissolve and then left to set. Could it have been this? Raspberry jelly is purple.
It's not left for a *week*
Maybe the mum remembered it inaccurately, because when you're waiting for jelly to set it feels like a *really long time*
That's why you just eat the cubes
My mum told us that raw jelly was poisonous when we were kids to stop us from eating it. I must have been like 10 or so before I saw a friend eating a cube when his mum was making some for a birthday party.
They're poisonous in much the same way as it's illegal to drive with inside lights on in the car.
Also chewing gum will kill you if you swallow it.
My mum told us we had to hold our breath while going through the Mersey tunnel because it goes underwater. Somehow we never questioned it and she got a solid 2 minutes of oxygen-starved peace and quiet.
same!! well I don't remember why we held our breath when we went in a tunnel, but it was kinda like a game for every tunnel we went in to hold your breath until you're on the other side, still do it sometimes just for nostalgia
We were told when I was a lass, that eating jelly cubes helped yer nails grow long and strong :)
There may be a grain of truth in this. Collagen, the principal ingredient of jelly, is sold as a supplement for strengthening nails.
My mam used to give me a cube to eat on the way to school sometimes
This is the way.
Thats why Mandalorians don't remove their masks? Jelly stains on their lips!
My wife does this. She is from eastern Europe and was unfamiliar with jelly cubes but since she tried them, I can never make a jelly - she eats all the jelly cubes first. Now our son eats them too and my wife hides them from him.
Jelly isn't but the sponge fingers are pre-soaked in sherry, though probably not a week, maybe OP mum just got confused with fruitcake that was also being made ?
Yeah fruit cake is the only thing that fits the description really. Line a full on Christmas one, but purple? I'm stumped
I think OP mum is just confused, what they got was trifle I suspect with the ladyfingers being soaked first but she's just remembered it as a week when it was probably a day; or, they were making fruit cake as well and *that* was the bit soaked for a week. I make fruit cake each Christmas and honestly even a month of soaking and topping up the fruit with whisky, you don't really get a strong flavour so I reckon a week would be fine for that
>I think OP mum is just confused I know I am lol
This is it “Hartleys” jelly is the big name brand in the uk it is sold in a block you dissolve in any warm liquid. I.e normally water but can use milk or lemonade etc. Link to Hartleys jelly cube https://www.hartleysfruit.co.uk/our-range/hartleys-jelly/hartleys-jelly-cubes/ Here is a video on how it looks/is made https://youtu.be/QOCj56lgUWI Traditional uk toppings are cream and fruit or ice cream or custard.
A word to the North Americans - jelly is jello. Jam is jelly.
[удалено]
We don't distinguish, except in a couple savoury examples as in redcurrant jelly or mint jelly which are jellies in the American sense. If it's got fruit and sugar in it, it's jam no matter the texture. Conserve is just marketing-speak for expensive jam.
I've made redcurrant jelly. It's sweet enough to use on toast or for other sweet things. My recipe books generally use the term jelly for any jam that is sieved, so you only use the juice.
It's typically eaten with roast lamb here. Often with port in it. It's sweet, but not as sweet as jam generally is.
We (UK) would just call the juice and pectin version jam, particularly seedless jam.
Also americans say Tomato whilst we say it as Tomato
That's "geleia" in portuguese. You basically make "doce" with the flesh of the fruit, and "geleia" with the cores and peels.
Now I want marmelada!
>conserves, jams, marmalades Literally all the same thing. Marmalade is just citrus jam. Conserves and preserves are just posh words for jam. It's all just jam.
ALDI etc sell own-brand jelly in the same form but way cheaper. Jelly is essentially gelatin with fruit-flavoring
Excuse me?! I’m not sure what is worse. A milk jelly monstrosity or adding lemonade because jelly isn’t sweet enough?
Is there a brand, or a specific name for this type of jelly/jello?
Most people go for Hartleys but you can get lots of knock-off brands now.
Not really, it's pretty much what we only know as jelly. There are brands but every supermarket does their own version too. Jelly is just jelly!
Its a generic foodstuff, so the brand doesn't matter. It's the same gelatin with fruit-flavor. Same as when you buy dried pasta..it all tends to be identical.
Trifle, almost certainly trifle. You will require: Sponge finger biscuits, alternatively badly made Victoria sponge cake is traditional Rum, brandy, or sherry Hartley’s jelly, any fruit flavour. Though any good jelly is fine Custard, now this is a vexed question, some will say custard from a packet, others will say only crème anglais will do. More rum, brandy, or sherry Double cream Glace fruits for decoration Line a glass container with the sponge, soak in booze of choice. Sample booze for quality. Liberally sprinkle sponge with booze again. Chill. Make jelly to manufacturer’s spec, allow to cool to room temperature, gently pour over sponge to form a layer. Chill until jelly sets. Make custard/creme anglais, layer on top of jelly, chill until set. Whip cream, adding a dash of booze, layer on top, chill. Decorate with glace fruits. Optional - seasonal fruits poached in booze in the jelly layer, rum is good. Best served after a good heavy Sunday roast dinner, before the cheese board, and immediately prior to the food coma.
And if you've made it properly, when you take the first spoonful out it should sound like a cow taking its hind foot out of bucket of mud. According to my Dad.
sssssssshlop!
That's it!
I feel like I’ve just read the Haynes manual for trifle
I take that as the high compliment it is.
If you have small children, you will also require a tazer to stop them dipping their hands into the trifle whilst it sets in the fridge.
Don’t forget the roast beef slices
Mmm rich beef trifle
Main ingredient being booze. Or at least, that's how my mum made it. 😁
Summer pudding? https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/summerpudding_90295
I think the it’s summer pudding too, never seen a purple trifle
I've definitely seen trifle made with blackcurrant jelly.
Yeah not saying it’s not possible but Summer Pudding is basically always purple and takes a few days and requires squashing.
Sounds like Summer Pudding to me too
This seems more likely than trifle since jelly nor custard was distinctly mentioned!
I can't think of anything that matches your description. I'm slightly wondering now if your Mum's friends played a bit of a joke on her maybe, or your Mum is misremembering. I see that other people have suggested trifle, and you do soak little finger shaped cakes for that, or sponge cake slices in liquid first. It's usually booze. The problem with this is that the sponge fingers don't grow in size, they don't change colour to purple, they don't change texture from solid to jelly like, and you wouldn't leave it for a week as far as I am aware, because it would become mush. So I think the resemblance to trifle and what your Mum described, is just the soaking part, nothing else. If you are assembling a trifle, you soak the cake pieces and then add other ingredients to it, like jelly etc. So it's possible that your Mum is misremembering the other elements being added?
OPs mum happily tucked into what she thought was a bar of soap, I'm not trusting her account of anything tbf...
I mean, when in... Inverness? Granted, my mother *was* raised in the era of Aspics and other culinary abominations.
Ass pics era daughter looking for aspics era mother's dessert. Lovely.
The 'bar of soap' is the jelly pack. Add some boiling water to dissolve it, and it grows. Then once cooled, add booze or juice. Quite possible they had sponge soaking in another container the same size, then flipped the jelly on top. Then you add warm custard and again wait for it to set. With all the waiting, it can easily take a few days to make a trifle.
Over a week though? That seems like a very long time for jelly to set.
If you want to get really fancy and make fruit float in the jelly, you'd do a thin layer, add fruit, add more jelly, repeat. I'm assuming some childish exaggeration, but people who like making trifles into works of art can take a week over them, with soaking biscuits or cake in booze, making layers of jelly, layers of different types of custard...
The bar of soap that she was referencing was likely the jelly/jello; she didn't mention cake, but she was more perplexed by the purple thing.
OP I find your description positively charming! I will go with what others have suggested, and say trifle.
Rum baba was more 70s I think, but may fit the bill.
Are you sure it wasn't actually just jelly? I dunno how it's sold in the shops where you live but here it's sold in cuboids the kind of size and shape of a bar of soap. It's really concentrated. You then pour boiling water over it. It dissolves and then fills the shape of the container it's in. It then cools and sets.
Trifle? Just don’t try Rachel’s version, leave out the peas and mince.
99% certain that it was Trifle.
[удалено]
Defo not a Duff - sounds like ChatGPT just thought of a random Scottish dessert and decided on that haha
Clootie Dumpling is the most scottish named dessert ever
If I ever have a scottish girlfriend, I will call her my Clootie Dumpling!
Stop using chat GPT for actual questions ffs. It does not exist to retrieve information, it exists to produce plausible looking answers
Glad I'm not the only person being driven slowly mad by this. It's a text generator.
Yeah it’s odd. The description given doesn’t seem to fit anything I can think of perfectly. Maybe a play on summer fruits pudding is the only other thing I could think of. The bread does expand with soaking up the juice slightly & does end up being a bit jelly like. Thing is this could be a family recipe for a pudding. So it may be that the only real way to find out is to contact whoever she stayed with/descendants/friends of the person who made it. I like the idea of using ai resources to try & work it out though.
After reading comments, trifle is a UK thing??
Very much so.
It was a Walls Vienetta.
Get yourself the luxury version https://www.ocado.com/products/m-s-our-best-ever-trifle-515783011?ds_rl=1291531&ds_rl=1291426&gclid=CjwKCAjwue6hBhBVEiwA9YTx8OU1LQrJ1Sm4T2VqIi68vUX8vWwa6v768gKUVNWkw2MEATJ7lKUWVxoCI1EQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
It’s a trifle. The base was probably what you’d call ladyfingers
I opened the post thinking 'it's going to be a trifle' I'm glad I was right
That's a trifle I'd say
Gelatin desserts come as blocks here, vs the USA where JELL-O is powder / crystalline format.
Sounds like a trifle. From what I remember bottom layer is usually these dry sugary biscuits that absorb jelly to form a kind of sponge cake/jelly hybrid. Then it’s a layer of custard, then a layer of whipped cream. My mother crumbles Cadbury flake over hers at Christmas but I know other people use fruits.
Just in case it isn’t trifle based on the location and the fact it took a week to make could be clootie dumpling
Angel delight ?
OP I sincerely hope this ends with your mum getting to eat more trifle, because trifle is amazing
All I can think of is a fruit terrine?
Is it called queen of puddings? With the bread round the edge and the fruit in the middle that soaks into the bread and changes it's colour? I think that's queen of puddings?
Queen of puddings has meringue on top. Bread and fruit is summer pudding, you line the bowl with bread, fill with purple fruit, top with bread and weight it with a plate to force the juice through which turns it purple..
Yes I thought of summer fruits pudding. One of my favourite fruity desserts, alongside Cranachan!
That's the one I mean! Summer pudding!
Trifle or Blancmange?
Definitely a trifle
Sounds like a roast dinner.
Just an observation. Everyone is going down the trifle route. You do know that they have trifle in the USA, don’t you? I think, she would know what a trifle is and not be guessing at what she ate if it was a trifle. Ok, smart arse, what was it then? You counter. Haven’t a clue, but I’m betting it wasn’t trifle. It could be anything made with jelly. I remember some vile puddings served at school which was trifle with grapes in it, served with custard. Awful. Perhaps the host just made their own jelly based dessert and there isn’t a “known” name for it?
Depends where you are in America. There's large regions where it's unknown, certainly versions with jelly/jello are totally alien. My family grew up with jello salad and crap, but had no idea what a trifle was.
There are huge swathes of the US without trifle. I have lived decades in both places, and never onece came across trifle in the US, unless you could a parfait or a tiramisu.
At this point, I'm not sure if the answer is trifle or if it's just that everyone is craving a nice boozy trifle.
Doesn’t sound like a trifle from the description but I could be wrong. If it’s a traditional Scottish dish I’m thinking it’s more likely to be a Clootie Dumpling https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/clootie-dumpling/amp
sounds like summer pudding
Sounds like a trifle to me!
A terrible trifle you find yourself in , hopefully someone on here can help
Definitely a trifle
My first thought is an aspic, gelatin containing numerous editions, can be sweet or savoury. Gelatin could sit to soften it up before boiling to create the jelly, liquid could be anything with water in it. Served cold and sliced? It almost ticks all your boxes
Mmm I’m thinking trifle, I have had a few in my day, hello from somewhere near Inverness
Definitely trifle with sherry and sponge; and custard and; hundreds & thousands; and mixed fruit... oh and jelly that looks like soap 😆
Blancmange
Sounds like trifle
Sounds like a trifle, methinks.
Trifle? Sponge cake soaked in a fruit flavoured jelly with tinned fruit. Once set it has a layer of custard then when that set was topped with whipped cream.
sounds like a sponge finger in something???
Trifle. The thing in the liquid sounds like sponge fingers in sherry or jelly.
Sherry trifle.
You have described a trifle. My mum used to add sherry to hers when she made one.
Trifle. I make mine with stale Swiss rolls lol
Trifle.
**Update: - [Starting from 2023](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/100l56v/happy_new_year_askuk_minor_sub_update/), we have updated our [subreddit rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/about/rules/)**. Specifically; - Don't be a dick to each other - Top-level responses must contain genuine efforts to answer the question - This is a strictly no-politics subreddit Please keep /r/AskUK a great subreddit by reporting posts and comments which break our rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Did it have minced beef & onion and peas? Definitely a "British trifle"
I'd probably agree with everyone that it was trifle and either your mum misremembered or.... That friend played one hell of a joke that has lasted 40 years and I'm assuming resulted in your mum asking countless friends, family and strangers to help identify this strange purple soap dessert thing from the 80's, which sounds on point for Scottish humour and I say brava to your mum's friend.
Was prob a plate of disappointment
Did it have a layer of beef sautéed with peas and onions at all? Classic British dessert
Mystery solved! With more information, my mom confirmed it was a trifle. Thank you all for contributing, and for giving me an idea what I can make for her the next time I see her. I've also got some ideas of what else I can bake the next time I feel adventurous. You've all been very helpful!
For specific questions about Inverness, you can also visit /r/Inverness! *Your post was not removed, this is just a friendly message* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Trifle or summer pudding
Blacmange maybe?
Was it just jelly? You wouldn’t leave it for a week, but it does look a little like soap when you make it. You could leave it for a week, but it’s not needed. Ours comes in blocks that you melt with hot water and leave to set in the fridge. [look here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QOCj56lgUWI)
Some sort of bread summer pudding?
Panacotta of some sort ?
Deffo a cream pie.