Excellent Trifle

The recipe given here is for an early style of trifle, without any colorful layers of jelly or fruit. Instead, the trifle architecture consists of layers of boozy biscuits, custard, and syllabub, just as the first English trifles did in the 1750s. The result is excellent and complex, despite the absence of the later embellishments.

The syllabub layer is actually a dish on its own. In the eighteenth century, syllabub was regularly served at parties in special bell-top glasses, with e