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Break the jelly cubes into a jug and add 1/2 pint of boiling water, stir until all the jelly has dissolved. If you like, add some red food colouring to make it more "blood" coloured. Top up the jelly to 1 pint with cold water. Set aside and allow to cool, ideally you want it around 20c if you have a food thermometer (almost room temperature if you are going by feel), this takes a good few hours but don't let it cool to long or it will begin to set which we don't want yet.
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Once your jelly is cool enough, break up about 3/4 of your gluten free chocolate cake (I used a pre bought one but you could make your own) and place in the bottom of a trifle dish. Add in some spooky bone or worm shaped jelly sweets if you like and pour the jelly over the top. Some of the cake will float but don't worry about it, it adds to the spookiness!
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Place in the fridge for at least 3 hour and let the jelly set completely.
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When the jelly is set make up your custard. Measure out your milk and pour most of it into a pan and warm through on a low heat, don't let it boil. Leave about 75-100ml of the milk in the jug and add the custard powder and sugar to this, mix well.
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Once your milk is warm, not boiling, pour it back into the jug, give it a quick mix and then return to the pan. Place back on the heat, turn to medium and add in some food colouring of choice, green works well to give a slime effect. Keep stirring until the custard thickens, you need it to go fairly stiff but remember it sets more as it cools too. Once thick, place a layer of cling film on the top and allow to cool down - the cling film stops a skin forming.
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Once your custard is cool, take your jelly base from the fridge, remove the cling film from the custard and it over the jelly, level it out to create your next layer, place back in the fridge and allow to fully chill for a few hours.
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After you have chilled the custard you are ready for your cream layer, pour 300ml double cream in a jug, add a few drops of food colouring if you desire (I used black) and then whisk with an electric whisk until very thick and stiff.
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Spread your cream over the top of your custard layer, crumble up remaining cake to add some "dirt" to the top and add some more scary sweets - skulls, worms, bones, spiders all work well. If you like add on some "bloody" strawberry sauce too!
NB: This doesn't have to be just for Halloween, skip all the food colourings and sweets and change the cake and you have a regular trifle. Use a thick, hardy cake like a madeira cut into chunks in the jelly and top with whatever you like - sugar stands, broke up chocolate etc!
