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Dessert

An Excellent Trifle

A layered dessert of macaroons soaked in wine, topped with custard, raspberry jam and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

An Excellent Trifle

Ingredients

Directions

Assemble the base

  1. Layer the macaroons and drops of essence in the bottom of a dish.

  2. Pour in enough raisin wine to soak the macaroons.

Build the layers

  1. Add a layer of cold rich custard made with eggs, milk, sugar, and flour, about 2-3 inches thick.

  2. Spread a layer of raspberry jam on top.

  3. In a separate bowl, whip the cream, egg whites, sugar, lemon zest, and raisin wine until stiff.

  4. Spread the whipped mixture over the trifle.

  5. Prepare the trifle a day in advance.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raspberry + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Macaroons
Soak up the wine and form the soft base layer.
Rich custard
Adds a thick, creamy layer that gives the trifle its body.
Egg whites
Whipped into foam to lighten the topping and give it structure.
Rich cream
Whipped to a stable topping that adds richness and softness.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavour between the layers.

The step that matters

Whipping the topping until stiff. Egg whites and cream must be whipped to firm peaks so the topping holds its shape. Under-whipped mixtures stay runny and sink into the custard.

Swap the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, flour, cream, egg, sugar, lemon, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, flour, cream, egg, sugar, lemon, wine. 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.

More trifle recipes

Apple 48Gooseberry 43Lemon 18Swiss Cream 17Brandy 13Grape 12 See all 115 →

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