Old fashioned trifle

We are having friends for dinner tonight, I don’t mean they are on the menu but that they are coming round to eat with us! For dessert my husband suggested a good old-fashioned sherry trifle, so at the moment the sponge cakes and fruit and jelly are in the fridge and later today I will make th custard and then when that is cool and covering the sponge-fruit-jelly I’ll decorate it with piped whipped cram – how very 1950’s!

I looked in Eliza Acton’s cookery book, published first in the 1840’s; in her ‘Excellent Trifle’ recipe she uses macaroons and ratafia biscuits, a rich custard made with six eggs and ¾ pint of milk and cream, and ¼ pint – yes a quarter of a pint of brandy and wine mixed… good grief, no wonder it’s an excellent trifle!

Eliza also has a recipe for Swiss trifle which she describes as ‘very good’, which is without the alcohol but flavoured with lemon and cinnamon, and she also has a tipsy cake which seems similar to trifle, a sponge cake soaked in brandy and white wine, studied with almonds and with a rich boiled cold custard.

Mrs Beeton who published her cookery book a decade later also has trifles, including apple trifle, banana trifle, gooseberry trifle and just plain trifle – oh, and also a tipsy cake. Her trifle has ratafias, macaroons and sponge cakes but spread with raspberry jam, and with the addition of lemon zest and almonds.

Next time we have visitors I might try some of these alternatives!