Trifle has not always been a sozzled confusion of custard, says Nigel Slater.
there is a trifle on the table, then it must be a party. At Christmas, christenings and birthdays, this sumptuous concoction of cream, custard and sponge is a sure sign of a celebration. And yet I have a suspicion that the trifle is not entirely comfortable in the kitsch surroundings of baubles and tinsel. Its soft creaminess and discreetly hidden alcohol seem to belong to a more genteel occasion than one where grown men wear paper hats.
This booze-laden custard has always been associated with jollity. Banquets in the 15th and 16th centuries would have come to a close with a parade of 'little trifles'. Syllabubs, flummeries and tansies would be lined up on the banqueting tables to tempt the nobility into eating even more. Imagine silver platters and glass dishes holding all manner of sweets. Mousses and custards would be decorated with rose petals and marigolds, possets spiked with cinnamon and sherry. These were dishes to titillate rather than satisfy. Food to be trifled with. Desserts whose textures were soothing and whose flavourings of rose water, orange and almonds were discreet.
For a taste of just how elegant the trifle can be, it is worth looking at the recipe in Michael Smith's classic Fine English Cookery. This is as over the top as a recipe can be (the late Mr Smith was a consultant on the BBC's The Duchess of Duke Street - a chintz cushion of a television series). His recipe demands a fatless sponge, a pound of apricot purée and a pint of proper custard. With whipped cream, toasted nuts and crystallised pears, apricots and Carlsbad plums, the result is something of a Fabergé egg.
Cooking instructions from the 17th century bear no sign of sponge cake. Early trifles were a much plainer affair, consisting of warmed cream set gently with rennet, flavoured with cinnamon and mace, and sweetened lightly with sugar. In fact, it was rather more like the now fashionable panna cotta or that most dreaded of childhood desserts, the blancmange. A hundred years later and the recipe becomes recognisable as the extravagantly layered affair we know today. According to The Experienced English Housekeeper by Elizabeth Raffald, this dessert was made with three large macaroons with wine poured over them, and was topped with a custard of cream, egg yolks, cinnamon and sugar, then a third layer of beaten cream with sugar and lemon.
Even as late as Victorian times, the trifle was being made with macaroons and a layer of beaten and flavoured cream that we now know as syllabub. As it approached the Victorian table, this dessert must have looked as beautiful as an angel, with layer upon layer of delicately perfumed cream and charming decorations (although our angel would still have had a whiff of alcohol on her breath).
It was the inclusion of packet jelly in the early part of this century that turned our graceful if somewhat tipsy angel into a good-time girl, and by the mid-20th century the dessert had been so downgraded as to be almost nasty. The custard powder, coloured jelly and packet sponge mix were bad enough, but the real insult was the liberal use of the cheapest sherry in the shop. And the final nail in the coffin was the glacé cherry. Our poor Christmas angel now found herself drunk on cheap sherry and wearing a clown's nose. And with the inclusion of jelly, the trifle's discreet schlup as the first spoonful was lifted from the crystal dish became a crude squelch.
Trifle lovers remain divided over fruit. Jane Grigson suggests cherries, strawberries, raspberries or lightly cooked peaches. Caterers open tins of fruit cocktail. I am a banana man, because of its affinity with custard and cream. Mrs Beeton has a delectable recipe for a gooseberry version, served in layers with cream, custard and ratafia biscuits. Her decorations are restrained compared with the hideous piped swirls of cream, maraschino cherries and grated chocolate of the 1960s. I suppose I should denigrate those teeth-shattering silver balls, too, but somehow they rather flatter my favourite decoration of sugared rose petals and freshly toasted flaked almonds.
There have been more recent attempts at cutting the considerable time it takes to assemble a classically made trifle. My own includes using sponge fingers, raspberries and muscat wine with a layer of sweetened mascarpone on top. As an instant pudding, it works well enough, and even better if you include a carton of the ready-made chilled custard from the supermarket.
Restaurants interpret classic recipes according to the whim of the chef. London's Connaught decorates its trifle with a piped trelliswork of lurid jelly (a little vulgar for such an elegant old lady of an hotel I think). Paul Heathcote's eponymous restaurant in Longridge in the Ribble Valley offers a moulded version, complete with a layer of glistening claret jelly from which twinkle wild strawberries. It is also topped with a thin layer of sponge, another of vanilla custard, and a finish of whipped cream with vanilla seeds and a crown of more wild strawberries
Standing like a glowing jewel box, this is how I suspect the recipe would have been presented for the 16th-century nobility. And to be honest, it looks quite comfortable amongst the tinsel.