Trifle

Trifle is the British layered dessert built in a glass bowl so the strata show: sponge soaked in sherry or another fortified wine at the bottom, fruit and often a layer of set jelly above it, thick egg custard over that, and whipped cream on top, finished with toasted almonds, glacé cherries or grated chocolate. It has a long record, with recipes under the name from the late sixteenth century that were closer to a flavoured cream, and the sponge-custard-cream form settled in the eighteenth; jelly arrived in the Victorian period and remains the dividing line between two camps, with the older and more serious tradition rejecting it. It is the standard English Christmas and family-party pudding, the Scottish tipsy laird uses whisky in place of sherry, and the Italian zuppa inglese, a sponge and custard dessert flavoured with the red liqueur alchermes, is its closest relation abroad.