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Trifle, Apple
Make a whip the day before the trifle is wanted, as for other trifles, using a pint of cream, two ounces of sugar, a glassful of sherry, and the white of an egg. Lay the froth on an inverted sieve, and leave it in a cool place. Peel, core, and slice a dozen fine apples, and put them into a saucepan with two table-spoonfuls of sugar and two of water, and let them simmer gently until quite soft. Press them through a sieve, and mix with the pulp the grated rind of half a lemon and a table-spoonful of brandy--but the brandy may be omitted. Make a thin custard with half a pint of cream, half a pint of milk, and a little sugar, and stir the mixture over the fire until it begins to thicken, but do not let it boil. Lay the pulped apples at the bottom of the trifle-dish; when the custard is cool pour it over them, pile the whipped cream high on the top, and the trifle will be ready for serving. It may be ornamented with stripes of bright apple jelly. When it is not convenient to make the whipped cream, an inexpensive and simple substitute may be made as follows. Whisk the whites only of three eggs to a firm froth; sweeten and flavour them, drop them in large spoonfuls into boiling water for a quarter of a minute, and turn them lightly over in the water that they may be set all round. Let them drain two or three minutes, and pile them over the custard. The appearance of the dish may be varied by slightly colouring half the whisked eggs with a few drops of cochineal. Time, about half an hour to stew the apples. Probable cost, 3s. 6d., if cream be used. Sufficient for a small trifle-dish.
A late-Victorian trifle built on apple pulp rather than sponge and jam, with a syllabub-style whip drained overnight. Two things in the original need attention before you start: the custard as printed has no eggs, and the poached meringue timing is far too short.
- The custard needs eggsAs written the "thin custard" is only cream, milk and sugar, which will never thicken. A custard of this kind needs eggs: allow about 6 egg yolks, or 4 whole eggs, to the pint (20 fl oz) of mixed cream and milk, with about 1 oz sugar.
- Custard temperatureStir over gentle heat, or in a bowl over simmering water, until it coats the back of a spoon at around 170-175F. Above about 180F it scrambles; the instruction "do not let it boil" is the hinge of the whole dish.
- Imperial measuresA pint here is the imperial 20 fl oz, so "a pint of cream" is 2.5 US cups and "half a pint" is 1.25 cups. A tablespoonful of the period may have been somewhat larger than the modern one. "A glassful of sherry" means a wine glass, conventionally about 2 fl oz.
- The whipWhisk cream, sugar, sherry and egg white together until the froth rises, lift the froth off with a skimmer onto an upturned fine sieve set over a bowl, and refrigerate overnight so the liquid drains away. What is left is dense and stable enough to pile high. A 36% fat heavy cream works best.
- Raw egg whiteThe white in the whip is never cooked. Use pasteurised whites if serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, or omit it and rely on the cream alone.
- The applesA dozen "fine apples" is perhaps 3-4 lb. Use a variety that collapses, such as Bramley or another tart cooking apple; dessert apples like Gala hold their shape and will not sieve to a smooth pulp. Half an hour of gentle simmering is about right, and modern apples may need less added water.
- The poached meringue substituteA quarter of a minute in boiling water will not set spoonfuls of whisked white through. Poach them in barely simmering water, turning once, for 1-2 minutes a side until firm to the touch, then drain on a cloth.
- CochinealThe pink colouring is a genuine insect-derived dye, still sold as carmine or E120. Any modern food colour does the same job; a little beet or raspberry juice tints without flavouring much.
- Yield and servingEnough for a "small trifle-dish", perhaps six servings. Assemble the apple and custard layers a few hours ahead and keep chilled, but add the whip or the poached meringues only shortly before it goes to table. The 3s 6d cost is a Victorian household figure, not a guide to anything today.
Trifle in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was less fixed than the sponge-and-jelly assembly it later became: at its core it was custard under a whip, and everything below the custard was negotiable. The whip itself descends from the whipped syllabub, where cream, sugar, wine and sometimes egg white were beaten until the froth could be lifted off and drained on a sieve overnight, leaving the thin wine-flavoured liquid behind. An apple base in place of macaroons and ratafias marks this out as an economy version; the alternative of poached meringue, which the recipe calls "an inexpensive and simple substitute", makes the intention plain. The tinting of half the whisked whites with cochineal reflects a Victorian appetite for coloured table effects that ran well ahead of any worry about what the colour was made from.