Trifle is a layered dessert of English origin. The usual ingredients are a thin layer of ladyfingers or sponge cake soaked in sherry or another fortified wine, a fruit element (fresh or jelly), custard and whipped cream layered in that ascending order in a glass dish. The contents of a trifle are highly variable and many varieties exist, some forgoing fruit entirely and instead using other ingredients, such as chocolate, coffee or vanilla. The fruit and sponge layers may be suspended in fruit-flavoured jelly, and these ingredients are usually arranged to produce three or four layers. The assembled dessert can be topped with whipped cream or, more traditionally, syllabub.
The name trifle was used for a dessert like a fruit fool in the sixteenth century; by the eighteenth century, Hannah Glasse records a recognisably modern trifle, with the inclusion of a gelatin jelly.
History
thumb|Illustrations from [[Mrs Beeton|Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management, 1861]]
Trifle appeared in cookery books in the sixteenth century. The earliest use of the name trifle was in a recipe for a thick cream flavoured with sugar, ginger and rosewater, in Thomas Dawson's 1585 book of English cookery The Good Huswifes Jewell. This flavoured thick cream was cooked 'gently like a custard, and was grand enough to be presented in a silver bowl. Trifle evolved from these fools, and originally the two names were used interchangeably.
It was not until the 1750s that trifles took the form that many know of today.
The Dean's Cream from Cambridge, England was made about the same time as Hannah Glasse's version and was composed of sponge cakes, spread with jam, macaroons and ratafias soaked in sherry, and covered with syllabub. Trifle-like desserts of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries include King's Pudding, Easter Pudding, Victoria Pudding or Colchester pudding.
The English cookery writer Jane Grigson has a trifle in her book on English Food (first published in 1974) and she describes her version, which includes macaroons, Frontignan wine, brandy, eggs, raspberry jam and everlasting syllabub, as "a pudding worth eating, not the mean travesty made with yellow, packaged sponge cakes, poor sherry and powdered custard".
The late 19th century was, according to the food historian Annie Gray, "a sort of heyday" for trifles (8 volumes, 1891), from Theodore Francis Garrett, alone. A lemon Swiss roll and amaretti trifle, created by Jemma Melvin from Southport, Merseyside, in the United Kingdom won a competition run by Fortnum & Mason "to create a pudding fit for the Queen".
Coronation Trifle was created by Adam Handling for the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023. It is made with parkin, ginger custard and strawberry jelly.
Variations
Trifles may contain different sorts of alcohol such as port, punsch, raisin wine or curaçao.
Trifle is a popular Christmas dessert in Australia, where it is traditionally made with Swiss or sponge rolls, tinned peaches, jelly (often the Aeroplane brand), vanilla custard and whipped cream. Fresh fruit and berries are also commonly added as a topping.
Similar desserts
The Scots have a similar dish to the trifle, tipsy laird, made with Drambuie or whisky.
In Italy, a dessert similar to and probably based on trifle is known as zuppa inglese, literally "English soup". Tiramisù is prepared similarly to trifle, but it does not include fruits and the original recipe calls for the savoiardi (ladyfingers) to be dipped in coffee rather than spirits.
See also
- List of custard desserts
- Eton mess – Unlayered similar English dessert