Mixed Berry Trifle Recipe

The trifle was once considered an unfashionable cliché, but thanks to its irresistible retro charm, the dessert has firmly re-established its place as a party classic across the UK. I challenge anyone not to feel joy when presented with this unapologetically decadent combination of wobbly fruit jelly, genoise sponge cake, crème légère, and whipped cream. Bursting with nostalgia, a classic trifle is a feat to be admired, especially when it’s built in a sharing-size glass bowl to show off its distinct layers.

The trifle made its official debut in the 1585 cookbook, The Huswives Jewell. In its early days, the trifle was nothing more than a creamy dessert flavored with rose water and ginger. It was also interchangeable with a fool, another classic English dessert that combined fruit purées with thickened cream. In the 18th century, author Hannah Glasse added a layer of jelly to the trifle recipe in her book The Art of Cookery and the trifle as we know it today was born. By the 19th century, the trifle had fully become a part of English popular culture. It has even been immortalized by poet Oliver Wendell Holmes who wrote of “that most wonderful object of domestic art called trifle…with its charming confusion of cream and cake and almonds and jam and jelly and wine and cinnamon and froth.” 

Every year at Christmas, or during a particularly festive holiday like the Royal Jubilee (the Queen’s birthday), online searches for trifle spike. Nothing says “party” like a trifle, especially one made in a gloriously immodest-sized bowl for sharing. You can also build it in miniature form, offering up the dessert to your guests in individual glasses. No matter the size, it’s the perfect blank canvas for dessert. Although this recipe is for a classic mixed berry trifle studded with strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, you should let your imagination run wild. Each layer of the trifle can be adapted to suit your taste or the season. 

Ripe juicy peaches poached in sweetened black tea in the summertime or pears simmered in spiced red wine for Christmas can easily be swapped in for the berries. You could also use store-bought fruit juice, like pomegranate or apple, as the base of your jelly if you don’t want to make your own poaching liquid. The custard, which should always complement the jelly or fruit, could be infused with cinnamon, or subbed in for chocolate pudding. You could even add a drizzle of salted caramel sauce when you build the layers up. Imagine roasting pineapples in rum and using the cooking liquor as the base for a boozy jelly and piling it up with coconut pastry cream for a pina colada trifle. You could suspend chocolate pound cake in espresso jelly, then finish it with mascarpone-infused cream for a trifled tiramisu. A trifle has no limits (although I haven’t seen a savory one yet, I’m sure I could be convinced). 

Making a trifle starts with preparing the jelly by poaching the fruit gently until tender. After straining the fruit, you’ll layer it in the serving bowl with cubes of genoise sponge cake. If you’re in a pinch, you can use store-bought ladyfingers or pound cake, but homemade genoise absorbs the trifle’s liquid elements the most effectively and produces a superior final texture. The poaching liquid then gets thickened with gelatin and poured on top for the cake to happily soak up. As the sponge sits, it expands pleasingly as the jelly sets into a jiggly, fruit-and-cake studded jello. Fresh fruit goes on top of that, along with an optional but highly encouraged drizzle of sherry.

The whole affair is covered in luxurious crème legere—a whipped cream lightened with pastry cream—and topped with a final layer of softly whipped cream that’s garnished with toppings like toasted sliced almonds and sprinkles.

When making a trifle, there is a degree of planning involved since the jelly has to set and the flavors need enough time to meld. But this also makes it a great dessert to assemble in advance, as it can sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours (any longer and the cream may begin to weep; you can always hold back that layer and add it at the last minute). A trifle is a show-stopping dessert that should always be presented to the table in all its glory. After the inevitable ooh-ing and ahh-ing subsides, dish it out directly into individual bowls with the largest spoon you can find.