Trifle Trifle Trifle in English cuisine is a dessert made with fruit, a thin layer of sponge fingers soaked in sherry or another fortified wine, and custard. It can be topped with whipped cream. 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 contents of a trifle are highly variable; many varieties exist, some forgoing fruit entirely and instead using other ingredients such as chocolate, coffee or vanilla. The name trifle was used for a dessert like a fruit fool in the sixteenth century; by the
Whipped cream cream not. However, most authors treat the two as synonyms, with both being sweetened, neither being sweetened, or treating sweetening as optional. Many authors use only one of the two names (for the sweetened or unsweetened version), so it is not clear if they distinguish the two. The invention of crème Chantilly is often credited incorrectly, and without evidence, to François Vatel, "maître d'hôtel" at the Château de Chantilly in the mid-17th century. But the name Chantilly is first connected with whipped cream in the mid-18th century, around the time that the Baronne d'Oberkirch praised the "cream" served at a