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
Gelatin dessert was flavored with sugar, lemon juice and mixed spices. This preparation was called "jelly"; English cookery writer Hannah Glasse was the first to record the use of this jelly in trifle in her book "The Art of Cookery", first published in 1747. Preparations on making jelly (including illustrations) appear in the best selling cookbooks of English writers Eliza Acton and Isabella Beeton in the 19th century. To make a gelatin dessert, gelatin is dissolved in hot liquid with the desired flavors and other additives. These latter ingredients usually include sugar, fruit juice, or sugar substitutes; they may be added and