Baking with Michelle Darmody: Sherry - not just for trifle

I HAVE just returned from a very wet and windy trip to southern Spain. The weather was so unexpectedly grey that we found ourselves indoors more than we intended. There was an up-side, we used the time to visit some wonderfully aromatic sherry bodegas, if I closed my eyes I felt as if I were sinking into a trifle.

The range of sherry styles we tasted was very broad, there was one to work alongside each matching tapas, from a bone dry fino sherry to the intensely sweet, dark and sticky Pedro Ximenez. I enjoyed the Oloroso style the most, it is golden in colour and has a nutty taste somewhere between the dry and sweet. It seemed extra nice when served among the old barrels inside the great vaults of the bodegas.