If you like chocolate chip ice-cream, you’ll love this. Buy the thin chocolate mints – chocolate with tiny chunks of mint – and not the chocolates with the runny mint centre

Ingredients
Serves 6 – or 1 if you eat nothing else all day!

8 trifle sponges
6 tablespoons Bailey’s Irish Cream
1 x 400g can pear halves in natural juice
300 ml (10 fl oz) double cream
1 x 250 g tub mascarpone cheese
200 g (8 oz) mint chocolate wafer thins Fresh mint, to garnish
Icing sugar, to dust

Preparation time 10 minutes

You will need a shallow glass bowl of about 1.5 litre (23/4 pint) capacity.

1. Slice the trifle sponges horizontally through the middle. Use eight halves to cover the base of the glass bowl. Sprinkle over 3 tablespoons of the Bailey’s and 2 tablespoons of juice from the can of pears.
2. Whisk together the cream and mascarpone in a large bowl until lightly whipped (be careful not to over-whisk). Reserve six of the chocolate thins and chop the rest so they are still very chunky – about the size of hazelnuts. Mix the chopped chocolate in with the cream.
3. Cut the pear halves into 1cm (1/2 in) slices and lay over the soaked sponge mixture. Spread with half the cream mixture and repeat the whole process again starting with the sponge. Coarsely chop the remaining chocolate thins and sprinkle over the top.
4. Leave to chill in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours, and serve garnished with fresh mint and a dusting of icing sugar.

Note: Not suitable for freezing

Tip
If you prefer, you could use brandy or rum instead of Bailey’s. Remember to keep Bailey’s in the fridge; because it has a cream base, it can easily go off (although I find it doesn’t last long enough to worry about) .If you have over-whipped your cream and it looks a little curdled, add a little pouring cream and stir in (don’t whisk) and the cream will become smooth again.

Recipe taken from Secrets From a Country Kitchen by Lucy Young, published by Ebury Press.

This recipe appeared in Aga magazine, Issue 5. To subscribe to the magazine visit http://www.agamagazine.co.uk/