banana stone fruit trifle with orange blossom custard

Last summer, my friend Mary brought a fruit trifle to my parents’ house for dinner, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. She was visiting her mom in Chicago at the time, and in her words she “just threw it together with whatever was around the house.” And being an amazing Assyrian baker, her mom had orange blossom water on hand, which found its way into the trifle’s whipped cream and custard. It was just so perfect, and when Mary offered to leave the leftovers, I don’t think I even did one of those “oh I couldn’t possibly!” false protests, and just said “yes please!”

So this summer, with peaches, plums, and nectarines at their peak, I made this stone fruit and banana trifle. Orange blossom water works beautifully with all stone fruits, but there’s really no better combination than orange blossom and banana—the flower water really highlights the ripe banana flavor that we’re always looking for more of when baking and cooking with them.

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A quick note on Middle Eastern and North African trifles in general: I sometimes come up with recipes inspired by the flavors and techniques of classic Middle Eastern food, but this trifle isn’t done “with a Middle Eastern twist,” because it’s something that’s actually cooked in Iraqi and Egyptian kitchens. So I just wanted to take this opportunity to highlight some of the Middle Eastern and North African trifles out there, because there are some amazing ones, and it’s August, and high time to make all the trifles:

Maryam’s Culinary Wonders’ lemon trifle
Amira’s Pantry’s tropical fruit trifle
Nadia Barrow’s Iraqi trifle

notes on adapting this fruit trifle to be more and less set

I love this trifle the way it is and hope you will too, but you might prefer a more set dessert, so I’ve put together some advice on adapting it to suit your preference. First, a quick description, so you can determine whether this version is for you:

This trifle has a texture similar to classic banana pudding, which means that it scoops more like pudding and less like a custardy cake. I personally don’t prefer trifles where you can see the distinct spoon imprint after scooping out a serving (e.g., trifles with a texture more like panna cotta)—but on the flip side, you don’t want your trifle to rush in to fill the gap when you scoop some out (that would be way too watery for anyone). This trifle is somewhere in between—definitely not watery or soupy, but also not super firm.

Here are some things you can do if you’d like a more cakey, set trifle:

• Substitute poundcake or angel food cake in place of all or some of the cookies.
• Trifles with a lot of fruit tend to be on the puddingy side, so to prevent this one from getting watery, I ask you to macerate the fruit and then strain it. No one should skip this step, because there’s a fine line between puddingy trifle and trifle soup, and stone fruit contains a lot of liquid. But if you want it to be a bit more set, let the fruit macerate even longer, and strain it extremely well for several minutes. You could also use more bananas in place of some of the stone fruit, which don’t give off juices to the same degree (but I really like it with the full amount of stone fruit, especially this time of year). Even if you’re going for a puddingy texture, make sure you don’t use over-ripe stone fruits (as I mention in the recipe).
• Whip the cream to stiff peaks, and then pipe it onto the top. Stiff peaks are much firmer, but they don’t dollop well at all, so you’ll need to pipe it with a star tip or something pretty that’ll give it the right kind of texture (otherwise it’ll look grainy and awkward). I like the more casual look of dolloping soft peaks.

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