A Grand Trifle

“Trifle” originally meant a cozening or a cheat, but not so when it became an ironic name for an eighteenth-century extravaganza that combined four desserts in one and caused Oliver Wendell Holmes to rhapsodize, “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.” The froth was from a syllabub, the cream was often an almond cream custard, and the cake was sometimes Italia