How To Make Homemade Trifle Recipe

Want to know how to make homemade trifle? This blog post shares the recipe that my wonderful girlfriend uses to make this great British dessert. A trifle is basically a layer of fruit and jelly, followed by a slightly smaller layer of custard and lastly a smaller layer of thick double fresh cream. Apparently trifle was first mentioned in publication in England in the 15th century. All I know is it has been a firm favourite of mine, for all my life!

If you are throwing a British dinner party this dessert is great after the main meal, and just before the cheeses. Often if you have just eaten a large main meal, people will take a break in-between the meal and dessert. My girlfriend and I are lucky to use large trifle bowls from both my grandmothers, that were given to me in the past. If you don’t own a trifle bowl, I guess a large container with a flat bottom and reasonable depth with be okay.

Note: Children require the help and supervision of an adult to make this delicious recipe.

Ingredients:

• Custard (you must make your own custard, and not use ready-made custard)
• Raspberries (though you could use strawberries or other fruit)
• Thick double fresh cream
• Jelly (in our case vegetarian raspberry jelly)

Shopping advice

We brought our vegetarian raspberry jelly from a local health food shop. In the UK you might be able to find it in a Holland & Barrett shop, if you are looking for the vegetarian version. Our Holland & Barrett didn’t stock raspberry and instead of asking if they could order it in, another health food shop stocked it.

You can use tinned or frozen fruit instead of fresh fruit. We visited a few locations to find reasonably priced raspberries.

Step 1 – Make the jelly and mix with the raspberries.

Prepare your jelly in a jug and then pour into your large trifle dish. Perhaps you don’t own a trifle bowl, but I guess you could use another type of rectangle shaped dish, but not a rounded bottom bowl. If you are using fruit, then let the jelly cool for a bit and then pour onto the fruit and mix it before the jelly sets.

You might also want to use slightly less water than specified in your jelly instructions, to compensate for the liquid that will ooze out of your fruit, if raspberries for instance.

My girlfriend used 300g of defrosted raspberries (we had brought frozen ones).

Step 2 – Make the custard.

Before you make the custard, you should allow the jelly two to three hours to set beforehand in the fridge. The layer of custard shouldn’t quite be the same amount as the jelly and fruit. Instead the custard layer should be around 3/4 the size of the jelly layer, though it is personal preference.

You allow the custard to cool before pouring onto the jelly. Once you have created your custard layer, place in the fridge to set for a few hours.

I’m sorry but you can’t use tinned custard, as you need to make thick custard, to create a thick layer of cold custard for the trifle. If you’ve not made custard before, don’t allow the trifle to be your first attempt! Instead make some custard and eat with bananas or other fruit. Then once you are happy with your custard making skills, make the custard for the trifle.

Step 3 – Add a layer of thick double fresh cream.

The last layer is a thick layer of double fresh cream. When my girlfriend last made the trifle the thick cream would not spread! Disaster! So she removed the cream, placed in a bowl and added a small amount of milk and then mixed. Then the thick cream was able to spread!

Step 4 – (optional) add chocolate sprinkles.

You might want to add a chocolate sprinkles to the top of the trifle, but we never do.

Et Voila!

Serving suggestions

Even though there is thick cream on top of the homemade trifle, many people (including me) often will have a small amount of single cream poured on their trifle after it has been served. You might also want to have a cup of tea to accompany! Then if having a dinner party, after the dessert, you might have a break, followed by cheeses and coffee!