Berry Trifle Recipe

This Berry Trifle is a delicious dessert of fresh blueberries and strawberries layered with cake, whipped cream, and pudding or pastry cream for a decadent, crowd-favorite dessert. 

Fresh juicy blueberries and strawberries are the colorful highlight to this classic trifle recipe. Layers of vanilla cake or Cream Cheese Poundcake, vanilla pudding or pastry cream and homemade whipped cream alternate with the berries to create a stunning summer dessert favorite!

Berry Trifle is one of those desserts that is absolutely perfect for serving crowds. It is most definitely one of my family’s favorites and perfect to serve guests all through the spring and summer!

Berry Trifle Recipe

While this dessert is most definitely beautiful with it’s layers of color and texture, it is certainly a simple recipe to make. Parts of the recipe can be made ahead. And the layers come together rather quickly for a dessert that’s rather fun to create!

How to Make Berry Trifle

To make this trifle recipe, I start with the classics of tender vanilla cake or Cream Cheese Poundcake, creamy vanilla pudding or homemade pastry cream, and of course sliced strawberries, fresh blueberries, and perfectly fluffy homemade whipped cream.

Your ingredients will of course depend on which cake you decide to use, and whether you use vanilla pudding or pastry cream. All options are delicious and I have made various combinations for my Berry Trifle over the years. All of my trifles turn out beautifully and are a hit when I serve them.

Ingredients

• Fresh strawberries – sliced
• Sugar
• Vanilla Pudding or Pastry Cream
• Vanilla Cake or Cream Cheese Pound Cake – cut into cubes
• Fresh blueberries
• Whipped Cream

Step by Step Instructions

I use a glass trifle bowl in each of these photos, but I’ve used large glass bowls, and even used individual dessert glasses where I made several individual sized trifles. Use what you have and what makes you happy with your presentation. I’ll refer to it as a trifle bowl in the instructions.

1. Start by adding your sliced strawberries to a medium sized mixing bowl and sprinkle with sugar and set aside. This is to bring out the maximum sweetness in the strawberries.
2. Assemble the layers by adding a ½ of the vanilla pudding OR ½ of the pastry cream to the bottom of the glass trifle bowl.
3. Next, layer ½ of the vanilla cake cubes OR ½ of the cream cheese poundcake cubes.
4. Follow with a layer of ⅓ of the strawberries and blueberries.
5. Next layer with ½ of the whipped cream.
6. Repeat layering with the remaining cake cubes, remaining pudding or pastry cream, ⅓ of the berries and remaining whipped cream.
7. Right before serving, top the Berry Trifle with the remaining ⅓ of the strawberries and blueberries. This looks freshest and most beautiful for serving.

Note: Many people go to great lengths to make sure that every layer of the ingredients shows in their trifle. You can be very precise in your placement of your layers – it’s your choice. The dessert will be delicious no matter if every strawberry slice is placed just perfectly or not.

Berry Trifle Options

While I’ve included my absolute favorite ways to serve this trifle, I do have a few options for you that might be helpful:

• Cake options – Rather than using the vanilla cake or cream cheese poundcake called for, you can also grab an Angel Food Cake from the grocery store bakery to use for the cake portion in this recipe. It tastes divine and is ready in a jiffy.
• No Vanilla Pudding – You can simply omit the vanilla pudding in this recipe and simply use whipped cream.
• Non-dairy topping – While I prefer to use whipped cream in my trifle, some do prefer to use the non-dairy whipped topping that you can find in the freezer section of the grocery store.

More Berry Recipes

Blueberry Cobbler

Maple Berry Overnight Oats

Strawberry Pie

Blueberry Coffee Cake Recipe

Blueberry Muffins

Here’s my Blueberry Strawberry Trifle recipe. I hope you love it as much as we do!

Enjoy!
Robyn xo