Skip to main content
Dessert

German Trifle

A layered dessert of strawberries, macaroons, custard, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,475 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

German Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the base

  1. Place the strawberries or fresh fruit in the bottom of a glass dish and sprinkle with sugar.

  2. Add a layer of macaroons over the fruit.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and beat in the egg yolks until combined; sweeten to taste.

  2. Pour the custard over the macaroons and let it cool.

Top and decorate

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, adding a little sugar, or whip cream to a froth.

  2. Top the trifle with the beaten egg whites or whipped cream.

  3. Optionally, decorate with currant jelly in alternating patterns.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the milk into a custard and add richness and colour.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form a light, airy topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that sets as it cools.
Macaroons
Soak up the custard and give the trifle a soft, layered texture.
Strawberries
Add fresh fruit flavour and acidity under the custard layer.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; under-beaten whites stay runny and collapse into the dessert, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesCurrant SherbetCurrant Sherbet9 recipesCurrant and Raspberry IceCurrant and Raspberry Ice7 recipes