Trifle, to Make a
INGREDIENTS for large dish. For the whip, 1 pint of cream, 3 oz. of pounded sugar, the white of TRIPE, TO DRESS. 2 eggs, a small glass of sherry or raisin wine.
For the trifle, 1 pint of custard, made with 5 eggs to a pint of milk; 6 small sponge cakes, or 6 slices of sponge-cake; 12 macaroons, 2 dozen ratafias, 2 oz. of sweet almonds, the grated rind of 1 lemon, a layer of raspberry or strawberry jam, 1/2 pint of sherry or sweet wine, 6 tablespoonfuls of brandy. AVERAGE COST, 4s. 9d.
The whip to lay over the top of the trifle should be made the day before it is required for table, as the flavour is better, and it is much more solid than when prepared the same day. Put into a large bowl the pounded sugar, the whites of the eggs, which should be beaten to a stiff froth, a glass of sherry or sweet wine and the cream. Whisk these ingredients well in a cool place, and take off the froth with a skimmer as fast as it rises, and put it on a sieve to drain; continue the whisking till there is sufficient of the whip, which must be put away in a cool place to drain.
The next day, place the sponge-cakes, macaroons and ratafias in layers in a dish; pour over them TRIFLE. 1/2 pint of sherry or sweet wine, mixed with 6 tablespoonfuls of brandy, and, should this proportion of wine not be found quite sufficient, add a little more, as the cakes should be well soaked.
Over the cakes put the grated lemon-rind, the sweet almonds, blanched and cut into strips, and a layer of raspberry or strawberry jam. Make a good custard, by recipe, using 8 instead of 5 eggs to the pint of milk, and let it cool a little; then pour it over the cakes, &c. The whip being made the day previously, and the trifle prepared, there remains nothing to do now but to heap the whip lightly over the top: this should stand as high as possible, and it may be garnished with strips of bright currant jelly (see illustration), or crystallized fruits of different kinds. SEASONABLE at any time.
The text as printed has the running heads of neighbouring entries (TRIPE, TO DRESS and TRIFLE) dropped into the middle of sentences; read past them. Note also that the ingredient list and the method disagree on the custard, and the method is the one to follow.
- Eight eggs, not fiveThe ingredient list calls for a custard of 5 eggs to a pint of milk, then the method tells you to use 8. Follow the method and use 8; the recipe does not say whether these are whole eggs or yolks, so take that from whichever custard recipe you use. The heavier proportion gives a custard thick enough to sit on soaked cake rather than run to the bottom of the dish.
- Imperial pintsA Victorian pint is 20 fl oz (about 570 ml), not the American 16 oz. That applies to the cream, the milk and the wine, so a US cook working from cups should add about a quarter more than the numbers suggest.
- The whip is the hingeThis is an old-style whipped cream: you whisk sweetened cream with wine and stiff egg white, skim off only the froth as it rises, and drain it on a sieve overnight. Draining is what makes it stand high instead of slumping. A cool place means the refrigerator, with a bowl underneath to catch the drip.
- Raw egg whiteThe whip is never cooked. Use pasteurised egg white, and keep the finished trifle refrigerated rather than standing at room temperature; anyone pregnant, elderly or immune-compromised should skip the whip and use plain whipped cream.
- Macaroons and ratafiasBoth are almond biscuits, not coconut macaroons. Ratafias were tiny bitter-almond drops the size of a coin; amaretti, broken up, are the closest thing on a modern shelf. Sponge cakes here means plain sponge fingers or a slab of unfilled sponge.
- The liquorHalf an imperial pint of sherry plus 6 tablespoons of brandy comes to roughly 375 ml of wine and spirit for one dish, and Beeton invites you to add more if the cakes are not well soaked. It is sized for a large Victorian bowl; scale it down with the rest of the recipe and taste as the cake soaks.
- Pounded sugarSugar crushed fine in a mortar — caster sugar. Granulated will not dissolve in a cold whip and leaves it gritty.
- Assembly and yieldCake and wine first, then lemon rind, blanched almonds and jam, then cooled custard, then the drained whip heaped on at the last moment. The recipe gives no number of servings beyond 'for large dish'. Let the custard cool and chill thoroughly before the whip goes on.
- Average cost, 4s. 9d.An expensive dish by the book's own standards, and the ingredient list is headed 'for large dish' — a centrepiece for a party rather than a weeknight pudding.
Trifle began in the sixteenth century as something much simpler: a bowl of thick sweetened cream flavoured with rosewater or ginger, the name meaning roughly a bit of nothing. The layered version arrives in the eighteenth century, when cooks began putting wine-soaked biscuits or stale cake at the bottom of the dish under custard, a form closely related to the tipsy cake and the older syllabub. Beeton's whip belongs to that older tradition — skimming the froth off whisked cream and draining it on a sieve is exactly the syllabub method, and the instruction to make it a day ahead because "the flavour is better" is sound: the wine and cream need time to marry, and the drained foam holds its height. The elaborate garnish of currant jelly strips and crystallised fruit, and the illustration the text refers to, mark this as a dish meant to be carried in and looked at, from a period when a dinner's sweet course was judged largely on its architecture.