Trifle is a layered dessert of English origin. The usual ingredients are a thin layer of sponge fingers 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.[1] 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.
Trifle appeared in cookery books in the sixteenth century.[2] 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 cookeryThe Good Huswifes Jewell.[3][4] This flavoured thick cream was cooked 'gently like a custard, and was grand enough to be presented in a silver bowl.[4] These earlier trifles, it is claimed, 'derived from the flavoured almond milk of medieval times'.[4] Early trifles were, according to food historian Annie Gray, 'more like fools (puréed fruit mixed with sweetened cream)'.[5] Trifle evolved from these fools, and originally the two names were used interchangeably.[6]
It was not until the 1750s that trifles took the form that many know of today.[2] Two recipes for what now is considered a trifle first appeared in the mid-18th century in England. Both recipes described biscuits soaked in wine layered with custard and covered in a whipped syllabub froth. One was in the 4th edition of Hannah Glasse'sThe Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (1751) and the other was by an unknown author entitled The Whole Duty of a Woman (1751).[1]
Jelly is first recorded as part of a trifle recipe in Hannah Glasse's 'A grand trifle' in her book The Compleat Confectioner (1760). Her recipe instructs the reader to use calves' feet to make a rich calves-foot jelly, and to half fill the dish with this jelly. Biscuits and macaroons are broken into pieces and stuck into the jelly before it sets, 'thick sweet cream' is poured over the jelly and biscuits and the whole is decorated with pieces of calves-foot jelly, raspberry jam and currant jelly cut into pieces, and more macaroons finish the dish.[7]
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.[4]
In 1855 Eliza Acton described The Duke's Custard, a mixture of sugared, brandied Morella cherries, covered in custard, edged with Naples biscuits (sponge fingers) or macaroons, which was then finished with solid whipped cream coloured pink with cochineal and 'highly flavoured' with brandy.[4][8]
Layers of a trifle dessert
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".[9]
The late 19th century was, according to the food historian Annie Gray, "a sort of heyday" for trifles[5] and by the early 1900s there were, in print, says Gray, "a bewildering number of recipes". There were thirteen in The Encyclopaedia of Practical Cookery: A Complete Dictionary of All Pertaining to the Art of Cookery and Table Service[10] (8 volumes, 1891), from Theodore Francis Garrett, alone.[2] That book is unusual, suggests Gray, in including two savoury versions, one with veal and one with lobster.[2]
In Italy, a dessert similar to and probably based on trifle is known as zuppa inglese, literally "English soup".[17]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.
Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly savory to create desserts. In some parts of the world there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
Pudding is a type of food. It can be either a dessert, served after the main meal, or a savoury dish, served as part of the main meal.
Queen of Puddings is a traditional British dessert, consisting of a baked, breadcrumb-thickened egg mixture, spread with jam and topped with meringue. Similar recipes are called Monmouth Pudding and Manchester Pudding.
Syllabub is a sweet dish made by curdling sweet cream or milk with an acid such as wine or cider. It was a popular British confection from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
Apple crisp is a dessert made with a streusel topping. Ingredients usually include cooked apples, butter, sugar, flour, and cinnamon. The earliest reference to apple crisp in print occurs in 1924. Other similar desserts include apple Brown Betty, apple cobbler, apple crumble, apple pan dowdy, apple pie, and Eve's pudding.
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy is a cookbook by Hannah Glasse (1708–1770), first published in 1747. It was a bestseller for a century after its first publication, dominating the English-speaking market and making Glasse one of the most famous cookbook authors of her time. The book ran through at least 40 editions, many of which were copied without explicit author consent. It was published in Dublin from 1748, and in America from 1805.
Banana pudding is a pudding generally consisting of layers of sweet vanilla flavored custard, vanilla wafers and/or ladyfingers and sliced fresh bananas placed in a dish and served, topped with whipped cream or meringue.
A charlotte is a type of bread pudding that can be served hot or cold. It is also referred to as an "icebox cake". Bread, sponge cake, crumbs or biscuits/cookies are used to line a mold, which is then filled with a fruit puree or custard. The baked pudding could then be sprinkled with powdered sugar and glazed with a salamander, a red-hot iron plate attached to a long handle, though modern recipes would likely use more practical tools to achieve a similar effect.
A floating island or île flottante is a dessert consisting of meringue floating on crème anglaise. The meringue used is baked in a bain-marie. It may be served at room temperature or chilled.
Zuppa inglese is an Italian dessert with layers of custard and sponge cake, perhaps derived from trifle.
A fool is an English dessert. Traditionally, fruit fool is made by folding puréed stewed fruit into sweet custard. Modern fool recipes often use whipped cream instead of custard. Additionally, a flavouring such as rose water may be added.
Scottish cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with Scotland. It has distinctive attributes and recipes of its own, but also shares much with other British and wider European cuisine as a result of local, regional, and continental influences—both ancient and modern.
Cabinet pudding, also known as chancellor's pudding or Newcastle pudding, is a traditional English steamed, sweet, moulded pudding made from some combination of bread or sponge cake or similar ingredients in custard, cooked in a mould faced with decorative fruit pieces such as cherries or raisins, served with some form of sweet sauce. Other versions of cabinet pudding might use gelatin and whipped cream.
Sponge cake is a light cake made with eggs, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most of them do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during the Renaissance, possibly in Spain. The sponge cake is thought to be one of the first non-yeasted cakes, and the earliest attested sponge cake recipe in English is found in a book by the English poet Gervase Markham, The English Huswife, Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues Which Ought to Be in a Complete Woman (1615). Still, the cake was much more like a cracker: thin and crispy. Sponge cakes became the cake recognised today when bakers started using beaten eggs as a rising agent in the mid-18th century. The Victorian creation of baking powder by English food manufacturer Alfred Bird in 1843 allowed the addition of butter to the traditional sponge recipe, resulting in the creation of the Victoria sponge. Cakes are available in many flavours and have many recipes as well. Sponge cakes have become snack cakes via the Twinkie.
A tipsy cake is a sweet dessert cake, made originally of "fresh sponge cakes soaked in good sherry and good brandy". The dish as prepared in England would typically have several small cakes stacked together, with the cracks between bristling with almonds. As a variety of the English trifle, tipsy cake is popular in the American South, often served after dinner as a dessert or at Church socials and neighbourhood gatherings. It was a well known dessert by the mid 19th century and was included Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in 1861.
Supangle or sup is a type of Turkish chocolate pudding. Its bottom layer includes pieces of cake and it is often garnished with pistachio or coconut, and chocolate chips.
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