Welcome to Nigella

Ingredients

• 8 trifle sponges
• 200g blackcurrant jam
• 1 x 200g packet amaretti biscuits
• 250ml limoncello (or other lemon liqueur)
• Juice of half a lemon
• 750g blackberries
• 2 eggs, separated
• 100g caster sugar
• 750g mascarpone cheese
• 50g flaked almonds

Method

1. Split the trifle sponges and make little sandwiches of them using 150g of the jam, then wodge them into the base of your glass bowl. Reduce the amaretti biscuits to rubble in the processor and, reserving some crumbs for sprinkling over the top at the end, scatter most of them evenly over the sponges and then pour over them 150ml of the limoncello.
2. Put the remaining 50g of jam into a wide saucepan with the lemon juice and melt over a low heat, then tumble in the blackberries and turn in the heat for a minute or so just until the juices start running. Tip these over the biscuit-sprinkled, liqueur-soused sponge sandwiches to cover and leave this while you get on with the next bit.
3. Whisk the egg yolks with the caster sugar until you have a thick smooth yellow paste. I use my Kitchen Aid for this, but any old hand-held electric mixer or whisk would be fine. Still whisking, drip in another 50ml limoncello and continue whisking away until you have a light moussey mixture. Whisk in the mascarpone until everything is smoothly combined, and when this is done add the remaining 50ml of limoncello.
4. Finally, in another bowl, whisk the egg whites until firm, but not dry, and fold these into the lemony, eggy mascarpone mixture. Now spread this gently over the blackberries in the glass bowl.
5. Cover the thus-far assembled trifle with clingfilm and leave in the fridge for the flavours and textures to steep and meld for at least 4 hours and up to 24. Take the trifle out of the fridge for about 40 minutes to an hour before it's needed (depending on how cold your fridge runs) to get to coolish room temperature. Not long before you want to eat, toast the flaked almonds by tossing them in a dry, oil-less pan over medium heat until they are turning gold and flashed bronze in parts, then tip them on to a plate. When they're cool, mix them with the reserved amaretti crumbs. Remove the clingfilm from the bowl and scatter the nuts and crumbs over the pale, set surface. Dig in and serve, making sure to heap the full triple-banded layer on each plate: the lemony, almondy, cream-swathed berrieness makes this the perfect ending to a large, lazy summer lunch.