This easy, no-bake berry cheesecake trifle is a perfect dessert for summer entertaining! Use a mix of strawberries and blueberries for a naturally red, white, and blue dessert.
Go ahead and bookmark this recipe now, because you’ll find every reason to make it over and over this summer! Barbecue at a friend’s place? You’ll bring dessert. Family coming for a visit? Serve them something sweet. Picnic at the lake? Arrange the trifle in individual portions in mason jars to keep in the cooler. With layers of delicious pound cake, a luscious no-bake cheesecake filling, and juicy summer berries, this is guaranteed to please.
Darlings, I’m sorry I didn’t post this sooner. I’ve been holding out thinking it wasn’t “exciting enough” for the blog, which is silly. There’s almost no way anything with the words “easy”, “cheesecake”, and “berries” isn’t worth sharing. Who wouldn’t want a cheesecake dessert without actually having to bake a cheesecake?
Random side note, I’ve been into no-bake cheesecakes this season. You’ll see another recipe about that soon. Today though, we trifle.
Berry cheesecake trifle is an EASY summer dessert!
If you haven’t watched the video with the sound on yet, you may not see how easy this is yet. My personal favorite thing about this trifle is how you can choose the level of involvement. Make everything from scratch, or take a few shortcuts… anything goes!
Do you want to bake your own pound cake? Get a great recipe here.
Grow your own berries? This aspiring-gardener with little talent for it bows to you. Seriously… all my plants are dead now, except the chives and maybe my thyme. Maybe. You are a rock star and I want to know your secrets please.
But if you want shortcuts…
Girl (guy, you), I got you. I like shortcuts too. I’ll smile at you in the store when we’re both loading up our carts with pound cake and berries. We know what we’re making, and it will be fabulous.
A few recipe tips and tricks…
Before I leave you with the recipe, I’d like to share a few tricks I’ve learned from making this a few times.
First, this recipe will fill a standard trifle dish quite full, or make between 6-8 smaller trifles, depending on the size of your containers.
If you don’t have a trifle dish and want to make a “big” trifle, you may layer this recipe in a 9×13-inch casserole dish! This makes it really easy to transport, and gives you some flexibility if you want to get creative with layering the berries. It’s really fun to make a berry “flag” for serving this at a patriotic summer get-together.
Second, if you find yourself in an unstocked kitchen with no whisk or mixer in sight and can’t fathom the thought of trying to make whipped cream with a fork… you can use thawed whipped topping in its place. Just don’t add any powdered sugar to it and remove a tablespoon of sugar from the cheesecake filling recipe.
IF you find yourself in this position, it’s also going to be really challenging to whip your cream cheese to a light and fluffy state. Look for prepared “no bake cheesecake” filling instead. It will do in a pinch. I highly suggest making the filling per the recipe though, because it’s better. But if you’re like my mom, a very very very much non-baker who looks for allllll the shortcuts, here you go!
If you’re actually my mother, I can make this for you next time I visit, mommy. I love you.
Finally, you can use frozen berries if you’d like. Fresh berries will give you prettier layers because you won’t get juice seep. If you do use frozen berries, thaw them in a colander to reduce the amount of excess liquid. You won’t get quite the same texture either, but the dessert will still taste good.
And with that my dears, the recipe! I hope you enjoy this beautiful summer berry trifle.
Summer Berry Cheesecake Trifle
This easy, no-bake berry cheesecake trifle is a perfect dessert for summer entertaining! Use a mix of strawberries and blueberries for a naturally red, white, and blue dessert.
Ingredients
- 1 12-ounce pound cake (see notes)
- 1 pint fresh blueberries, washed and dried
- 1 pint fresh strawberries, washed and dried (see notes)
No-Bake Cheesecake Trifle Layer(s)
- 1 1/4 cups heavy cream, chilled
- 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 24 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (see notes)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- Remove the stems from your washed and dried strawberries and dice them into bite-size pieces. If you'd like to slice some vertically for presentation, do so now. Set aside.
- Unwrap your pound cake and cut it into bite-sized cubes. Set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl or the chilled bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip together the heavy cream and powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Transfer this to another bowl for now.
- In the same mixing bowl, using the paddle attachment if you are using a stand mixer, whip the softened cream cheese, sour cream, and sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Stir in the lemon juice and vanilla to the cream cheese mixture and stir to combine.
- Using a rubber spatula, fold 1/3 of the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture. Be gentle as you don't want to deflate the whipped cream. Repeat 2 more times to incorporate the rest of the whipped cream into the cheesecake mixture.
- Assemble your trifle by placing half the pound cake cubes into the bottom of your trifle dish. Top with half the cheesecake mixture. Use an offset spatula or a spoon to spread the mixture over the cubes as evenly as possible.
- Top the cheesecake mixture with your strawberries. If you are using vertically sliced strawberries to decorate the outside of the dish, place those first and then fill the center of the dish with your diced strawberries.
- Top the strawberries with the rest of the cake cubes and then the remaining half of the cheesecake mixture.
- Finish off your trifle with a top layer of beautiful blueberries!
- Cover the trifle and refrigerate until ready to serve. This is best within a day or so of assembly since the cut strawberries will weep a little over time. Enjoy!
Notes
- A standard store-bought pound cake loaf is perfect! Otherwise, if you'd like to make one from scratch, my vanilla bean pound cake recipe (skip the glaze) is fabulous.
- A pint of berries is approximately 2 cups. Depending on the size of your container(s), you may or may not use all the berries. Use what feels right as you assemble your trifle.
- I just squeeze half a lemon into my cheesecake mixture. That's about 1 tablespoon.
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