Trifle

Trifle

Trifle
Serving temperature	Cold
Main ingredients	Sponge cake, fruit, whipped cream
Cookbook: Trifle   Media: Trifle

Trifle is a type of English dessert. It is made by stacking layers of sponge cake, fruit and whipped cream inside of a glass dish. The sponge cake is soaked in sherry before being stacked into a trifle.^[1] Different ingredients can be added to a trifle, like chocolate or fruit jelly.

The oldest books describing trifle are English cookbooks from the 1500s.^[2] The oldest recipe for trifle comes from Thomas Dawson's cookbook The Good Huswifes Jewell, written in 1585.^[3][4] It was made by cooking cream, ginger, rose water and sugar into a custard.^[4] These earlier trifles, it is claimed, 'derived from the flavoured almond milk of medieval times'.^[4] Early trifles were originally a dessert made by mixing fruit and cream,^[5] but now the word "trifle" describes a dessert made with cake, cream and fruit.^[6] This modern type of trifle was invented in the 1750s.^[2] Recipes from that time describe trifle as sweet biscuits soaked in wine layered with custard and covered in a whipped milk.^[7]

1. ↑ Davidson, Alan (2014). The Oxford companion to food. Tom Jaine, Soun Vannithone (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967733-7. OCLC 890807357.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} Gray, Annie (17 September 2019). The official Downton Abbey cookbook. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-68188-369-4. OCLC 1129384439.
3. ↑ The Good Husvvifes Ievvell. WorldCat. OCLC 606520795.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2} Norwak, Mary (1996). English puddings : sweet and savoury. London: Grub Street. ISBN 1-898697-44-2. OCLC 41899922.
5. ↑ Gray, Annie; Hann, Andrew (2020). How to cook the Victorian way with Mrs Crocombe. September. ISBN 978-1-910907-42-9. OCLC 1140134760.
6. ↑ "Three British Desserts: Syllabub, Fool and Trifle". Article by Diana Serbe. Archived from the original on 13 May 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
7. ↑ Davidson, Alan (2014). The Oxford companion to food. Tom Jaine, Soun Vannithone (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-967733-7. OCLC 890807357.