Trifle is a layered
dessert
Dessert is a course (food), 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 or liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly umami, ...
of
English origin. The usual ingredients are a thin layer of
Lady fingers or
sponge cake
Sponge cake is a light cake made with egg whites, flour and sugar, sometimes leavened with baking powder. Some sponge cakes do not contain egg yolks, like angel food cake, but most do. Sponge cakes, leavened with beaten eggs, originated during ...
soaked in
sherry
Sherry ( ) is a fortified wine produced from white grapes grown around the city of Jerez de la Frontera in Andalusia, Spain. Sherry is a drink produced in a variety of styles made primarily from the Palomino grape, ranging from light versio ...
or another
fortified wine
Fortified wine is a wine to which a distilled spirit, usually brandy, has been added. In the course of some centuries, winemakers have developed many different styles of fortified wine, including port, sherry, madeira, Marsala, Command ...
, a
fruit
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (angiosperms) that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which angiosperms disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particular have long propaga ...
element (fresh or jelly),
custard
Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with Eggs as food, egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in con ...
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
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cocoa beans that can be a liquid, solid, or paste, either by itself or to flavoring, flavor other foods.
Cocoa beans are the processed seeds of the cacao tree (''Theobroma cacao''); unprocesse ...
,
coffee
Coffee is a beverage brewed from roasted, ground coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content, but decaffeinated coffee is also commercially a ...
or
vanilla
Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia'').
''Vanilla'' is not Autogamy, autogamous, so pollination ...
. 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
Whipped cream, also known as Chantilly cream or (), is high-fat dairy cream that has been aerated by whisking until it becomes light, fluffy, and capable of holding its shape. This process incorporates air into the cream, creating a semi-soli ...
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
Gelatin or gelatine () is a translucent, colorless, flavorless food ingredient, commonly derived from collagen taken from animal body parts. It is brittle when dry and rubbery when moist. It may also be referred to as hydrolyzed collagen, coll ...
jelly.
History

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
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
, 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.
These earlier trifles, it is claimed, 'derived from the flavoured almond milk of medieval times'.
Early trifles were, according to food historian Annie Gray, 'more like fools (puréed fruit mixed with sweetened cream)'.
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.
Two recipes for what now is considered a trifle first appeared in the mid-18th century in England. Both recipes described
biscuit
A biscuit is a flour-based baked food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers.
...
s soaked in wine layered with
custard
Custard is a variety of culinary preparations based on sweetened milk, cheese, or cream cooked with Eggs as food, egg or egg yolk to thicken it, and sometimes also flour, corn starch, or gelatin. Depending on the recipe, custard may vary in con ...
and covered in a whipped
syllabub froth. One was in the 4th edition of
Hannah Glasse's ''
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy'' (1751) and the other was by an unknown author entitled ''The Whole Duty of a Woman'' (1751).
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.
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.
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
macaroon
A macaroon ( ) is a small cake or cookie, originally made from ground almonds, egg whites, and sugar, but now often with coconut or other nuts. They may also include jam, chocolate, or other flavorings.
Etymology
The name ''macaroon'' is ...
s, which was then finished with solid whipped cream coloured pink with
cochineal
The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessility (motility), sessile parasitism, parasite native to tropical and subtropical Sout ...
and 'highly flavoured' with brandy.

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
Brandy is a liquor produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume (70–120 US proof) and is typically consumed as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured ...
, 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
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''
(8 volumes, 1891), from Theodore Francis Garrett, alone.
That book is unusual, suggests Gray, in including two savoury versions, one with
veal
Veal is the meat of Calf (animal), calves, in contrast to the beef from older cattle. Veal can be produced from a calf of either sex and any List of cattle breeds, breed; however, most veal comes from young male calves of Dairy cattle, dairy b ...
and one with
lobster
Lobsters are Malacostraca, malacostracans Decapoda, decapod crustaceans of the family (biology), family Nephropidae or its Synonym (taxonomy), synonym Homaridae. They have long bodies with muscular tails and live in crevices or burrows on th ...
.
In 2022, a trifle was selected to be the
Platinum Pudding, to help celebrate the
Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. A lemon Swiss roll and amaretti trifle, created by Jemma Melvin from
Southport
Southport is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton in Merseyside, England. It lies on the West Lancashire Coastal Plain, West Lancashire coastal plain and the east coast of the Irish Sea, approximately north of ...
,
Merseyside
Merseyside ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial and metropolitan county in North West England. It borders Lancashire to the north, Greater Manchester to the east, Cheshire to the south, the Wales, Welsh county of Flintshire across ...
, in the United Kingdom won a competition run by
Fortnum & Mason
Fortnum & Mason plc (colloquially often shortened to just Fortnum's) is an Luxury goods, upmarket department store in London, England. The main store is located at 181 Piccadilly in the St James's area of London, where it was established in 1707 ...
"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
A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...
,
punsch,
raisin wine
Straw wine, or raisin wine, is a wine made from grapes that have been dried off the vine to concentrate their juice. Under the classic method, after a careful hand harvest, selected bunches of ripe grapes will be laid out on mats in full sun. ( ...
or
curaçao
Curaçao, officially the Country of Curaçao, is a constituent island country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located in the southern Caribbean Sea (specifically the Dutch Caribbean region), about north of Venezuela.
Curaçao includ ...
.
Similar desserts
The
Scots have a similar dish to the trifle, tipsy laird, made with
Drambuie or
whisky
Whisky or whiskey is a type of liquor made from Fermentation in food processing, fermented grain mashing, mash. Various grains (which may be Malting, malted) are used for different varieties, including barley, Maize, corn, rye, and wheat. Whisky ...
.
[Maw Broon (2007). ''Maw Broon's Cookbook''. Waverley Books; (18 October 2007) , p. 111]
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
*
*
* - Brazilian dessert
* - American dessert
*
List of custard desserts
*
*
*
References
{{English cuisine
Australian desserts
British desserts
Christmas food
Custard desserts
Foods with alcoholic drinks
New Zealand desserts
Sponge cakes
English desserts
British puddings
South African cuisine