Christmas has always been a time of joy and celebration in my family. As a child, I would feel a surge of excitement as the week before Christmas approached. To me, Christmas symbolised more than just decorated trees and toys; it represented a time when I could experience love expressed through the bond of cooking and baking.
Holidays and special occasions in our house have always meant more than just food and gift-giving. They were moments when heartfelt stories of how these special recipes came to be were shared. These stories would fill me with a sense of pride and warmth whenever I heard them — tales my mum and dad would fondly share while cooking, as I listened while struggling to wrap presents.
Every year, as my dad prepared the Christmas leg of lamb, he would reminisce about his days as an assistant in my grandmother’s small kitchen, where he helped her transform whatever ingredients she had into mouth-watering dishes for her large family. To this day, he always ends his stories about her cooking by saying, “My mother always cooked well with the little she had; she always prepared a feast, rich in flavour and, of course, with pudding!”
Dessert time has always been the highlight of Christmas celebrations for me as I have gotten older, especially when it comes to the trifle. My dad often shares that his favourite Christmas memory was making the trifle with my grandmother, a tradition he hopes to pass on to one of his children.
During my high school years, when I took an interest in consumer studies, my curiosity about baking blossomed. Every week, I found myself experimenting in the kitchen — burning pots while trying to make éclairs, or splattering cake mix on the walls with my mum’s brand-new mixer.
My father had taken it upon himself to help me succeed in my baking journey Christmas of 2017 starting with my grandma’s famous trifle recipe. Since then, we have cleared our schedules every Christmas Eve to make the trifle together, and by 2019, I had been promoted to Senior Baker.
From choosing the jelly flavour to layering the trifle, this is the activity I cherish most each year. I eagerly run to the shops to find the special ingredient we add annually to give the recipe a twist (last year, we tried finger biscuits alongside cake), but we always make sure to prepare one bowl that follows my grandmother’s original recipe.
Although I never had the chance to know my grandmother, her stories and passion for cooking live on through my dad, who often credits her with his signature household dishes. I like to think that my love for baking is my own connection to her, and I hope she will be proud to know that one day, I will pass on her famous trifle recipe to my own children.
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