Strawberry Blackberry Trifle

Dessert time is my favorite time of the day.  If I could skip every other entree and go straight to the finishing course, I would.  In fact, when I was pregnant with my 6 year old, I used to stash cookies under my bed, you know, just in case there was a cookie shortage.

Lately we have had soaring temperatures.  We've hit 100+ degrees the last few days, and even as I'm writing this (at 9:30 at night), it has only cooled to about 91 degrees.  This heat wave has really put a damper on my baking.  Who wants to turn on the oven when it is so hot outside?  So I had to come up with alternative ways to pacify my sweet tooth.  I turned to good ole' faithful Pinterest for help on this.  I actually found a recipe for an ice cream cake, which may be made later this week if this hot weather persists, but I settled on an adapted version of a strawberry trifle I had tested a few months ago.

This recipe is so simple, and only takes about 10 minutes to make.  It uses angel food cake, strawberries, cool whip, cream cheese, orange juice, blackberry, and sugar. 

The first step is to slice the strawberries and then mix them with in a bowl with about 1/2 cup of sugar.  This will cause them to start to ooze some syrup.  Set this bowl aside for later.

In your mixer, put the cream cheese, orange juice, and the remaining sugar, mix together until smooth.  Then add 3 cups of cool whip and mix until it is fully incorporated into the mixture.

Cut up the angel food cake into about 1 inch square pieces and set to the side until you are ready to put the trifle all together.  Put about 1 cup of the strawberries into a separate bowl and mush them up.  They will create a nice chunky sauce.  Then it's time to put everything together.

In a trifle bowl, put a layer of angel food cake.  You should use about half of the food cake you cut up.

Drizzle half of the mushed up strawberry chunks over the plain angel food cake.  Then put half of the cream cheese mixture over the angel food cake pieces.  On top of the cream cheese mixture, place the half of the strawberries and as many blackberries as you would like.

Then repeat with the remaining ingredients.

On top of the final layer of fruit, put the remaining 1 cup of cool whip.  Smooth it over the top so all the fruit is covered.  I put heart sprinkles and lemon flavored sprinkles on top, just to add a little pizazz.  I think lemon zest would have been a good substitute for the lemon sprinkles as well though.

Then serve up and enjoy.

Strawberry Blackberry Trifle

adapted from the Giveaway Bandit Blog

1 loaf of angel food cake, cubed into 1" pieces

1 1/2 cups sugar

2-3 pints strawberries, sliced

1 pint blackberries

2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese

3 Tbs. orange juice

4 cups cool whip

Heart Sprinkles and Lemon Sprinkles (optional)

In a bowl, toss sliced strawberries with 1/2 cup of sugar.  Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, orange juice, and remaining sugar until smooth.  Add 3 cups cool whip.  Set aside

In a separate bowl, add 1 cup of the strawberries that are coated in sugar.  Mush these up to drizzle over the angel food cake.  Set aside.

In a trifle dish, place half of the pound cake in the bottom.  Drizzle half of the mushed up strawberries over the angel food cake.  Cover with half of the cream cheese mixture and half of the strawberries and blackberries.  Repeat layers.

Then enjoy immediately, or put in the refrigerator for later.