Prue Leith Is the ‘Queen’ of This Dessert — and It’s Almost Effortless

Prue Leith is best-known as a judge on The Great British Baking Show, where contestants make elaborate desserts like towering layer cakes and 3D “biscuit” sculptures. But Leith’s favorite dessert to make at home is quite simple compared to these show-stoppers — and requires no baking time at all. 

“Whenever we have leftover cake, biscuit or pastry of almost any type, I turn it into a trifle,” Leith writes in her latest cookbook, Life’s Too Short to Stuff a Mushroom, which includes five recipes for the classic English dessert. 

In fact, Dame Leith calls herself the “queen of trifles.” 

A classic English trifle features layers of sponge cake soaked in sherry or another fortified wine, custard cream, fruit, and a whipped cream topping. But you can think beyond the English trifle template to make riffs like a Caramel-Pear-Cheesecake Trifle or Black Sesame Banana Cake Trifle. Here’s how to “trifle” just about anything. 

How to make a trifle 

The beauty of a trifle is that you don’t really need a recipe, and it can be as simple or fancy as you want it to be. You can make everything from scratch, you can lean entirely on store-bought ingredients, or you can take a semi-homemade approach. Say you have leftover cake layers — slice them into cubes and top with ready-made lemon curd or caramel sauce. Or you can doctor up store-bought pound cake with homemade custard cream and fresh fruit. 

Whether you’re using homemade or store-bought ingredients, here’s a rough formula for this choose-your-own-adventure dessert. 

1. Start with a large trifle dish or bowl. If you don’t have a trifle dish, you can use a large mixing bowl, preferably glass to show off the layers inside. (When assembling, you can line the ingredients you want to show off around the edge of the dish, such as slices of jelly roll cake or fresh fruit for a Mixed-Fruit Trifle.)
2. Add a cake layer. This could be the classic sponge cake, panettone, pound cake, brownies, stale croissants, or any base that will soak up the flavors of the trifle. Slice the cake into cubes or strips and line on the bottom of the dish. Leith likes to add an optional step of spreading the cake layer with something sweet like orange marmalade, strawberry jam, or even Nutella.
3. Soak the cake layer if you want. For an English-style trifle (or an Italian zuppa inglese), you can soak or brush the cake layer with a liqueur or spirit. Sherry is the classic choice for an English trifle, but you can also opt to use amaretto, brandy, rum, limoncello, or a non-alcoholic option like a fruit syrup.
4. Add a creamy layer. This could be custard, mousse, instant pudding, or even fresh whipped cream. (Note that you can add a layer of cream under the first cake layer if you prefer.)
5. Top with fruit or other mix-ins. Think sliced strawberries or bananas, toasted nuts, crushed-up candies, or crushed cookies like Oreos or gingersnaps. 
6. Repeat. Repeat layers until you get to the top of the bowl, finishing with the creamy layer or a layer of fresh whipped cream.
7. Garnish. Top off your masterpiece with more fresh fruit, crushed candy, nuts, or crushed cookies.

Feel free to, um, trifle with this template based on what you have available and your favorite flavors. However it turns out, no one is going to pass up a big bowl of cake and cream!