This delicious Easter Trifle is one incredible show stopping layered dessert! Layers of moist cake, creamy colorful pudding and whipped cream are topped with adorable little candy nests. They are the perfect sweet treat for your all your Easter celebrations.
Easter Trifle
One of the things people look forward to most when springtime arrives is Easter. All the fun Easter Bunny themed desserts, colorful Dyed Easter Eggs, and other delicious treats always bring a smile to everyone’s face. That is why I am super excited to be sharing this stunning and absolutely delicious Easter Trifle!
If you haven’t made a trifle before, you are in for such a treat with this fun and easy recipe. Once you have baked the cake, this delicious dessert comes together in minutes and is basically fail-proof! If you’re looking for other easy treats to add to your Easter line up, try these adorable little Bird’s Nest Cookies and this delicious Crockpot Easter Candy!
What’s Needed to Make this Easter Trifle Recipe
- Rainbow Chip Cake Mix: You can also use Funfetti cake mix
- Vanilla pudding & pie filling mix: Instant pudding is used to make the colorful pastel layers
- Milk: Whole milk is used to make the pudding
- Blue & pink food coloring: Used to add pretty colors to the pudding layers
- Whipped topping: Used in layering the trifle. We used Cool Whip brand in this recipe
- Green, pink, and blue edible candy grass: You can find edible grass at specialty baking stores or on Amazon
- Easter egg candies for decorating: You can use Whoppers Robin Eggs, Cadbury Eggs, large jellybeans or any chocolate eggs with a candy coating
How to Make Layered Vanilla Trifle
Step One: Bake and Cut Cake
Bake the cake according to package directions, with parchment paper inside the pan for easy removal. After 10 minutes of the cake being out of the oven, remove it from the pan and place on a cooling rack. Allow the cake to cool completely. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake into one-inch pieces.
Step Two: Prepare Pudding
Prepare the pudding mixture according to package directions, keeping each package of pudding in a separate bowls. Add a few drops of blue food coloring to one bowl, then add a few drops of pink food coloring to the other bowl. Be sure to only add a little at a time until you get the desired color.
Step Three: Layer the Cake and Pudding
Tightly place half of the cake cubes in the bottom of a trifle bowl or large glass bowl (fit as much cake as you can to not have gaps). Spoon one of the bowls of pudding over the top of the cake. Now spoon half of the whipped topping over the pudding.
Repeat with another layer of cake, the other color of pudding, then final 2 cups of the whipped topping.
Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
Final Step: Add Bird Nests
Make bird nests (2 of each color) from the edible candy grass. Do this by holding a half-inch thick group of grass and spin the grass tightly into a circle starting with one end.
Before serving, decorate the top of the trifle with 6 bird nests and add 3 candy eggs into each nest.
Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Tips for Making the Best Trifle for Easter Celebration
- Fit as many cake pieces as possible in a single layer in the trifle dish so that there’s minimal gaps. This really helps to keep the layers clean and separated and prevents the pudding from seeping down too much Break up the cake pieces to fill in tiny gaps if needed.
- You want the cake to be cubed and not crumbled. If you place the whole cake in the fridge for about 30-45 minutes, it will be easier to cut.
- Even though this recipe calls for vanilla pudding, you can use white chocolate pudding. This can give you more vibrant colors since the vanilla pudding has more of a pale yellow color.
- Tightly roll the candy grass nests to get them to stay. Stray away strands can be tucked into the whipped topping to hold them in place.
- Refrigerating for 4 hours allows the trifle to not fall apart as much when being served. And it tastes better when chilled.
Can I Make this Trifle Ahead of Time?
You can make the components of it ahead of time. You can bake the cake and make the pudding a day in advance. Then you can just assemble the final product the next day.
Can I Make Mini Trifles with this Recipe?
Absolutely! If you have some pretty little dessert cups you can make these into individual servings. You will assemble them the same way, starting with small cubes of cake or even cake crumbles, then half of the pudding followed then whipped topping and repeat.
Variations of this Easy Holiday Trifle
How to make this cake trifle for other holidays: You can color the pudding any color you chose, based on the holiday or time of year. You could use green and red pudding for a Christmas trifle, red and blue for 4th of July or even orange and yellow for Halloween.
Whipped cream layer: Instead of using premade whip cream, you make your own by combining 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, ⅓ cup powdered sugar, plus 1 teaspoon vanilla extract. Beat till stiff peaks form. Keep in the fridge until ready to use.
More color: If you want to add even more color, you can add sprinkles or fresh berries to the layers.
Pudding flavors: Yellow or white puddings work best in order to dye them different colors. But you can used any of your favorite flavor combinations. Using banana, lemon, or white chocolate would work great for this.
Cake mix: The layers of cake should be a lighter color so it will have a nice contrast in color with the pudding. But you can use any pale of white cake mix flavor you like. Lemon cake or angel food cake would work well.
Want Easter More Recipes?
- Hummingbird Cake
- Easter Resurrection Cookies
- Easter Cupcake Recipes
- Rice Krispie Treat Easter Eggs
- Easter Bunny Cake
- Dyed Deviled Eggs
Easter Trifle
Equipment
- trifle bowl
Ingredients
- 1 box funfetti cake mix prepared according to package directions (Funfetti cake mix can also be used)
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 3 eggs
- 2 3.4-ounce packages of vanilla instant pudding & pie filling mix
- 4 cups milk
- blue & pink food coloring
- 1 16-ounce container whipped topping thawed
- edible candy grass green, pink, and blue
- Easter egg candies for decorating I used Whoppers Robin Eggs
Instructions
- Bake the cake according to package directions, with parchment paper inside the pan for easy removal. After 10 minutes of the cake being out of the oven, remove it from the pan and place on a cooling rack. Allow the cake to cool completely. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake into one-inch pieces.
- Prepare the pudding according to package directions, keeping each package of pudding in a separate bowl. Add a few drops of blue food coloring to one bowl, then add a few drops of pink food coloring to the other bowl. Be sure to only add a little at a time until you get the desired color.
- Tightly place one layer of cake cubes in the bottom of a trifle dish or large glass bowl (fit as much cake as you can to not have gaps). Spoon one of the bowls of pudding over the top of the cake. Now spoon in 2 cups of the whipped topping over the pudding.
- Repeat with another layer of cake, the other color of pudding, then 2 more cups of the whipped topping.
- Refrigerate for at least 4 hours.
- Make bird nests (2 of each color) from the edible candy grass. Do this by holding a half-inch thick group of grass and spin the grass tightly into a circle starting with one end.
- Before serving, decorate the top of the trifle with 6 bird nests and add 3 candy eggs into each nest.
- Store covered in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
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