Welcome to Kitchen Queries, where the nigella.com team will answer your cooking or food related questions.  We’d love you to submit some of your recipe problems, dilemmas or queries for us to get our teeth into!

Please note, we are only able to answer questions selected for publication and aren't able to enter into personal correspondence.

• Christmas Trifle

  Dear Nigella, I would love to serve your Boozy British Trifle (Christmas, p42) as the centerpiece of my Christmas dessert table this year, but a number of my guests are allergic to nuts. Thus the lovely pistachio garnish is off-limits. Could you suggest a similarly glorious, gorgeous, nut-free alternative? Many thanks, Jennifer M.

  Posted by jameagher. Answered on 11th Dec 2011 at 0.00

  From the nigella team:

  The Boozy British Trifle has a mixture of crystallized rose petals and chopped pistachios for a topping as the colour combination of green and deep pink/red is one of Nigella's favourites at Christmas. If your guests are allergic to nuts then you could vary the decoration, for example by using green sprinkles instead of the pistachios, or even just using something like miniature holly and berry sprinkles (for examples see the link below).

  For a very retro trifle you could use red glace cherries and green candied angelica. This was a very popular decoration for trifles in the 1960's and 1970's and the angelica is usually cut into small diamonds and arranged so that each cherry half is sitting nestled between two angelica "leaves". Unfortunately as angelica has slipped out of fashion it is not easy to find but you may be able to buy it from cake decorating specialists and we have found some on-line sources (see links below).

  Sprinkles

  http://www.janeasher.com/sugarlist.php?cat=Seasonal&subcat=Christmas%20Edible%20Decorations

  Angelica

  UK

  http://www.wiltonwholefoods.com/candied-angelica-100g-p-20.html

  http://www.melburyandappleton.co.uk/angelica-candied-crystallised---75g-4439-p.asp

  US

  http://www.markethallfoods.com/products.php?product=Candied-Angelica-from-Lilamand

  US and Australia

  http://www.britishsupermarketworldwide.com/acatalog/info_34021.html

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