Berry Trifle

When I asked my kids what they wanted to make for dessert for the 4th of July, they said, "Something festive!" so this is what I came up with.

I intended to make homemade Angel Food Cake to go in the trifle, but all of the recipes I found called for 12-18 egg whites, and we recently used up most of our eggs in bulk cooking so we only had 7 available. I decided to go with my old standby white cake recipe that is easy and always delicious.

Berry Trifle

Trifles basically need 3 layers - cake, cream, and fruit. Often recipes will also call for pudding but I don't do instant pudding anymore, and I didn't feel like it was necessary to make pudding for this so I skipped it.

First, bake the cake. Here is my recipe for white cake:

White Cake

1 cup white Sugar
1/2 cup Butter
2 Eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
1.5 cups Flour
1 3/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 cup Milk

Preheat oven to 350*. Grease and flour a 13x9 pan. You can make this cake in 8" round pans as well but since I knew I was going to chunk it up, I just made a large, thin layer.

In mixing bowl, cream sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time, and then vanilla. Add flour and baking powder, mixing until combined. Stir in the milk until it makes a smooth batter.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. Cool.

Once the cake is cool, wash and slice the berries and whip the cream. Here is my method for making homemade whipped cream that is so quick and easy: Easiest Homemade Whipped Cream

Layer everything into a trifle bowl. I start with whipped cream, and then add fruit, making sure to press it up against the sides of the bowl so it's visible. Then cake, then whipped cream, fruit, cake and finally top with whipped cream. Then decorate the top however you like with extra fruit.