Simple Berry Trifle Recipe with Pound Cake
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This simple Berry Trifle Recipe is a super quick and easy dessert with layers of berries, delicious pound cake, and heavenly pastry cream. Minutes in the making, it’s a perfect summer dessert for gatherings, and it’s easy to prep ahead and assemble at a moment’s notice!
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Celebrate summer with this oh-so-easy summer dessert, whether that be for a red, white, and blue 4th of July, a summer afternoon tea, or even a wedding reception. Honestly, this is the perfect Summer Berry Trifle recipe!
It’s a perfect, make-ahead-friendly, or serve-immediately dessert recipe to last all season.
What is a Trifle?
This trifle has layers of delicious summer goodness. A rich and flavorful pastry cream lines the bottom of a trifle bowl, which is topped with cubed pound cake and fresh berries. That layer is repeated one more time, ending with pastry cream. Berries and mint sprigs will make a pretty decoration on top.
Why I love this recipe
- Serves a crowd
- Makes a beautiful centerpiece for the table
- Truly, it takes mere minutes to make with bright and festive colors
- It’s utterly delicious!
Perhaps my favorite part of this summer trifle recipe is that it’s very forgiving. It doesn’t require perfection in any form. If the layers are not perfect, all the better. A simple to make summer dessert that’s beautiful, tasty and fun to make!
How to Prep a Trifle the Day Before Serving
Trifles are simple to prep ahead. In fact, many believe they’re at peak flavor and texture from 4 to 24 hours after making. However, because whipping cream can become soft, for the best presentation of the trifle, I prefer to prep the berries and pound cake ahead, make the pastry cream on the day of, and assemble the trifle shortly before serving.
Here’s how I prep a trifle the day before serving:
Berries:
Wash the berries the night before. Place two layers of paper towels on a sheet pan, then lay the washed berries on the top. This helps to absorb additional moisture. You want the berries as dry as possible when making a trifle.
Pound Cake:
If you’re making the pound cake, be sure to make it ahead. Let it cool, and then cut it into about 1-inch cubes. If you’re using store-bought pound cake, cube it the night before and store it in a ziplock bag.
How to Layer This Berry Trifle
Here’s how to assemble this easy dessert recipe!
Begin and end with a pastry cream layer as follows: Add 1/3 of the pastry cream to the bottom of the trifle dish. Top with 1/2 of the cubed pound cake and 1/2 of the berries. Then add a second layer of pastry cream, followed by the remaining cubed pound cake and remaining berries. Add a final pastry cream layer to the top.
Here are the layers:
- Layer 1: Pastry Cream (the bottom of the dish)
- Layer 2: Cubed pound cake
- Layer 3: Mixed berries
- Layer 4: Pastry cream
- Layer 5: Cubed pound cake
- Layer 6: Mixed berries
- Layer 7: Remaining pastry cream for the topping
Variations and Substitutions
Here are some ideas for variations and ingredient substitutions in this mixed berry trifle.
Pound Cake:
Store-bought pound cake makes this recipe minutes in the making. While I love to make my own, for a trifle, I find myself buying it at Costco and using about 1 and 1/2 loaves of a 7 x 3-inch pack of three. Here is my go-to pound cake recipe if you want to make your own.
Angel food cake or Ladyfingers (Savoiardi) can also be substituted for the pound cake, making it a bit lighter.
Berries:
Summer trifles are always pretty in red, white, and blue. Perfect for the 4th of July and summer gatherings. While we’ve used strawberries, blueberries, and a sprinkling of blackberries, substitute your favorite fresh summer berries.
Pastry Cream:
This pastry cream is sweet, rich, and absolutely heavenly. It’s the key to this trifle, perfectly balanced with vanilla and cream cheese flavor and an utterly silky texture.
And it takes only minutes to whip up using a stand mixer with the whisk attachment or an electric beater.
Whipped topping is an option for a store-bought substitution or if you want a lighter trifle. You would need about 16 ounces. But… the flavor, richness, and texture are quite different.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you don’t have a trifle bowl, any deep bowl, like a salad bowl or punch bowl, works just as well. You can also consider making individual trifles in glass cups or mason jars.
Trifle recipes are wonderful during the holidays, and I love having access to one. I’ve linked a couple of my favorites in the recipe card below. My favorite is a 7-inch trifle dish I purchased at Crate and Barrel. I also have a larger trifle from Target.
If you have leftovers, the trifle will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Typically, the first layer of a trifle is the custard or cream layer. However, there are no hard rules to layering a trifle.
More Summer Dessert Recipes We Love
- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie (with a store-bought crust!)
- Old Fashioned Easy Strawberry Skillet Cobbler Recipe
- Easy Strawberry Rhubarb Tart (Strawberry Rhubarb Galette Recipe)
- Lemon Raspberry Yogurt Cake with Lemon Drizzle
- 4 Ingredient No Bake Lemon Pie with Condensed Milk
Have you tried this berry trifle recipe?
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Simple Berry Trifle Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound cake store-bought or homemade, sliced
- 2 (6-ounce) containers of blueberries (about 2 cups)
- 1 ½ quarts strawberries
- 16 ounces cream cheese room temperature
- 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- fresh mint sprigs for serving
Instructions
- Hull and halve the strawberries. Reserve 1 cup of mixed berries to garnish the top of the trifle.
- Cut the pound cake into 1 to 1½-inch squares.
- In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Set aside.
Pastry Cream
- Into another bowl, add the room temperature cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar; beat until smooth and creamy. Then, beat in the vanilla and 1/3 of the whipped cream. With a spatula, fold in the remaining whipped cream until combined. I like to add the pastry cream to a large ziplock bag with the corner snipped off. It makes it easy to add the cream to the trifle dish with smearing it on the sides.
Assemble the trifle:
- Begin and end with a pastry cream layer as follows: Add 1/3 of the pastry cream to the bottom of the trifle dish. Top with 1/2 of the cubed pound cake and 1/2 of the berries. Then add a second layer of pastry cream, followed by remaining cubed pound cake and remaining berries. Add a final pastry cream layer to the top.
Serving:
- If serving immediately, top with reserved berries and add sprigs of fresh mint. If serving later, cover and store in the refrigerator up to 24 hours. Just before serving, decorate the top with berries and sprigs of mint.
Video
Notes
- Berries: Wash the berries the night before. Place two layers of paper towels on a sheet pan, then lay the washed berries on the top. This helps to absorb additional moisture. You want the berries as dry as possible when making a trifle.
- Pound Cake: If you’re making the pound cake, be sure to make that ahead. Let cool, and then cut into about 1-inch cubes. If using store-bought pound cake, cube the night before and store it in a ziplock bag.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
What is considered a serving size? It shows nuitritional value and that there are 12 servings, trying to break it down
Hi Carol— this is a difficult recipe to get exact nutritional values for as the serving dish and size of pound cake cubes can vary. I’m in my market getting supplies for a recipe shoot this morning. As soon as I get home I’ll see if I can break it down for you.
Hi Carol, thank you for your patience. I went back through my recipe notes and found that with my trifle dish, I was basing the 12 servings on 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup servings. Hope that helps!
What is a serving size for this recipe. It says 12 servings so trying to break down the nuitritional value
The Berry Trifle recipe on 31 Daily is the best trifle recipe ever- a real crowd pleaser!!!
Hi Lucy! I’m just getting caught up from a busy weekend– Thank you!! I’m so glad you liked the Trifle! It’s a summer staple for us and I’m thrilled you found it helpful. Thank you for trying it!
Such a treat!