This and that…

I fried a packet of the keropok (prawn/fish crackers) that my Trengganu friends gave me when they came to town, the dark ones that, they told me, came from Kelantan…

Yes, they were very nice and my girl loved it so much so I packed a couple of containers to let her take back to her school to enjoy in the course of the week.

Last week, Thursday, I opened another packet to fry – the white ones, also from Kelantan…

…knowing that she would be home the following day. These too were very nice…and of course, I set aside some for her to take back as well.

In the meantime, I still had a box of that made-in-Australia Aeroplane Brand jelly…

…that a cousin of mine passed to me when we were in Bintulu not too long ago…so on Friday, I decided to make something special for dessert that evening after my girl had arrived home mid-afternoon.

I remember the very nice trifle that a Kuching friend of mine made once and I could recall very vaguely how he lined the dish with Swiss roll slices and that there was jelly and custard and whipped cream and it was absolutely awesome. I had some of the red velvet cake left so I cut thin slices of it and lined the bottom with those. Then, I made the jelly and poured that in. I was not sure how it would turn out so I just used a bit of the cake and the jelly – if it was disastrous, I could just throw everything away.

When I added the jelly, the cake floated up and remained on top – I was stunned! Ah well, I thought, never mind! And I just let it cool a bit and put it in the fridge for the jelly to set. By dinnertime, it was ready to be served so I took it out, turned the whole thing upside down and let it slide onto a plate…

Lo and behold! It was beautiful! And we liked it a lot too! Probably it would be nice if we had some vanilla ice cream to go with it and perhaps, some bananas too. I sure would want to try making it again…with thicker layers of cake and jelly the next time around.

I only used a bit of the jelly that day so I poured out the rest separately and let it set…

…so at least, if my attempt at making the dessert failed, we would still have some jelly to enjoy instead. In the end, we had both…killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. Ain’t that just great?