trifle

Trifle, in English cuisine, is a dessert made with fruit, a thin layer of sponge fingers soaked in sherry or another fortified wine, and custard. It can be topped with whipped cream. The fruit and sponge layers may be suspended in fruit-flavoured jelly, and these ingredients are usually arranged to produce three or four layers. The contents of a trifle are highly variable; many varieties exist, some forgoing fruit entirely and instead using other ingredients, such as chocolate, coffee or vanilla.
The name trifle was used for a dessert like a fruit fool in the sixteenth century; by the eighteenth century, Hannah Glasse records a recognisably modern trifle, with the inclusion of a gelatin jelly. Many of the ingredients used in ancient trifles can be found in meats and other products found today. According to some scholars, trifle cakes might be the origin of modern sandwich cakes.

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