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Apple Trifle
1009. Scald as much fruit as required, pulp it smoothly; add sufficient sugar to sweeten it, and the grated rinds of two lemons; lay this thickly at the bottom of the dish. Mix a pint of cream, a pint of new milk, and the yolks of three eggs well beaten; put it over the fire, stirring it until it is just upon the boil; sweeten it with white sugar, and let it grow cold; then put it over the apples with a spoon, and afterwards lay upon the whole a fine whip of cream, made some hours previously.
A Victorian fruit trifle with no sponge or wine in it at all: apple pulp, a thin pouring custard, and a whipped cream froth on top. The custard is the hinge — three yolks to a quart of dairy will curdle long before it thickens if it actually boils.
- Quantity of applesThe recipe says only "as much fruit as required". For a dish serving six to eight, about 2 lb of cooking apples yields roughly a pint of thick pulp, which gives a layer deep enough to eat with the custard rather than disappear under it.
- Scald and pulpCook the peeled, cored apples covered with a splash of water over low heat until they collapse, then beat or sieve smooth. Bramleys or another tart cooking apple break down on their own; dessert apples hold their shape and will need mashing or blending.
- New milk"New milk" is fresh whole milk straight from the dairy, unskimmed and not soured. Ordinary whole milk is the substitute; the pint of cream alongside it means the custard is rich enough without going further.
- Just upon the boilThree yolks will not set a quart of dairy — this is a pouring custard, not a set one. Stir constantly over gentle heat until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon, around 175-180F, and pull it off there. Once it boils it scrambles.
- Insurance against curdlingA double boiler, or a heavy pan over low heat with a bowl of cold cream ready to arrest it, makes the difference. If it does catch, straining it hot through a fine sieve will often rescue the texture.
- Lemon rindGrated rind of two lemons is a good deal for one dish and the oil is what carries the flavour. Grate only the yellow zest; the white pith beneath is bitter.
- The whip of cream"Made some hours previously" reflects the old method: whisk cream with a little sugar to a froth, lift the foam onto a sieve set over a bowl and let it drain so the whip stays stiff. Modern cream whipped to soft peaks holds well enough, but drain any weeping liquid before spooning it on.
- Assembly and chillingLet the custard go completely cold before it goes over the apples or the layers will muddle. Spoon it on gently, top with the whip, and refrigerate; serve within a day, as the cream picks up other flavours.
Trifle in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries covered a much wider field than the sponge-and-sherry construction the word now brings to mind. The oldest English trifles were simply thick sweetened cream, flavoured and left to stand; layers of soaked cake and fruit accumulated over time, and by the Victorian period a dish of fruit, custard and whipped cream could carry the name. This one belongs to the plainer, more domestic branch o biquits, no wine, nothing that needs buying in \and it makes sense in a household with a glut of apples and a dairy. The drained whip on top is the survival of an older technique shared with syllabub, where cream was whisked to a froth, skimmed off with a sieve or a skimmer and left for hours to firm, a common way to get a stable foam before the hand-cranked and then electric whisk made stiff cream a matter of minutes.