Strawberry Orange Trifle

Strawberry Orange Trifle is an easy, no-bake dessert with angel food cake, strawberries, and a hint of orange! This cold dessert is easy to prepare and will make the perfect BBQ dessert, 4th of July dessert, or even just a Monday-Night “pick me up” after a tough day. You’ll definitely enjoy this light and refreshing summer treat.

Today is your lucky day, my friend! Not only do I have a no bake dessert for you to “WOW” your family and friends with, but it’s an EASY NO BAKE DESSERT that’s sure to be a crowd pleaser. This cold dessert takes almost no time at all to put together and will take even less time to disappear. My Strawberry Orange Trifle will make the perfect BBQ dessert, 4th of July treat, or even just a Monday-Night “pick me up” after a tough day. Believe me, you have to try this one!

I tried this Strawberry Orange Trifle last week while at a cooking class with “The Boys”. For Mother’s Day, my mom surprised me and “The Boys” with the class. Though it was definitely not expected (I keep telling my mom she doesn’t need to buy her daughter a Mother’s Day gift!), it was greatly appreciated. If you have had time to take a look at my blog, I’m sure you can guess a cooking class was a perfect gift for me. Moms definitely know the way to their kids’ hearts.

Can I just say that I’m a huge fan of cooking classes! This is actually the fourth cooking class I’ve attended within the last couple of years. We have an amazing supermarket chain here in Florida called Publix and there are a few special Publix stores that have an Apron’s Cooking School inside them. We are lucky to live very close to one and have enjoyed taking classes there. Patrick and I did one as a fun date night and had such a great time that we took Zach about a month later to a sushi making class. Ironically, my mom and I did a brunch cooking class together on Mother’s Day just last year. All three times were awesome!

Wednesday’s cooking class was not at Publix, but rather at an actual cooking school run by a woman who has owned her business for over 30 something years now. It was a much larger class with about 20 people in attendance. All the groups were broken up into sections and then responsible for preparing the particular dishes that were assigned at that station. The menu for the evening included an appetizer, multiple main dishes and some yummy desserts.

As luck would have it, and by luck I mean the bad kind, “The Boys” and I were assigned two main dishes at our station to prepare. We were responsible for preparing Homemade Beef Stroganoff and Eggplant Parmesan for about 20 people. No pressure, right? Oh, and I should add that our Eggplant Parmesan recipe only went up to step two. Thank goodness that I know my way around the kitchen because we were basically left to the wolves to be eaten into a million pieces. Tempers were flying and Patrick actually said, “I’m about 1 minute from walking out of this place!” Oh, brother…

We finally grabbed ahold of ourselves and figured out a plan. Things calmed down and we got our game faces on. As a family, once we gather our marbles, we are unstoppable! We run like a well-oiled machine. We created two amazing dishes that were a huge success and loved by all. I may be partial, but I think our dishes were the best! Go, Team Hernandez!

After finishing the main course, we were given a few minutes to digest our food while the cooking school employees plated dessert for us. Dessert is always my favorite course so I was super excited to try the delicious treats that the others prepared.

I was in complete heaven the minute the dessert plate was put in front of me. There were cinnamon sugar donut holes filled with Nutella, chocolate chip cookies with a hint of orange, mini cheesecakes, Snickers ice cream and a delicious Strawberry Orange Trifle. My oh my!

I loved all the desserts on my plate but was swoon with the Strawberry Orange Trifle from the very first bite. At first glance, it looked like it would be just a typical strawberry trifle. I wasn’t expecting anything too out of the ordinary. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I got that nice hint of orange after trying it. It just brought such a freshness to the dessert. I knew this was one I wanted to make again at home especially over the summer because of how light it was.

Visually speaking, I love serving trifles as desserts because I think they look so stinking beautiful. My Banana Pudding Trifle is one of my go-to desserts for that very reason and so is my Heavenly Oreo Trifle! I knew this Strawberry Orange Trifle would be such a pretty dish to make as a summer dessert for a BBQ or 4th of July party. With Patrick having to work on Memorial Day (the unofficial kick-off to the summer), I decided to make this Strawberry Orange Trifle for him to bring to work. It was very well received! When I texted him to take a couple of pictures of it for me, he replied with, “It’s too late!”

So what do I need to make this Strawberry Orange Trifle?

1 cup of milk, 1 cup of sour cream, 1 (3.4 oz) package of instant French vanilla pudding, 1 tsp orange zest, 1 (8 oz.) container of Cool Whip (thawed), 1 store-bought Angel food cake, (cubed), 1 quart of strawberries, (sliced), 1 tbsp orange liqueur (optional for Adult-version)

In the bowl of an electric mixer, add 1 cup of milk, 1 cup of sour cream and your package of instant French vanilla pudding. Turn your mixer on low speed and allow your mixture to thicken.

While the ingredients are coming together, carefully use a zester to remove the zest off of your orange. When zesting any citrus, whether it’s an orange, lemon or lime, you want to make sure to only remove the colorful outside. The white underneath the colorful skin is very bitter and will ruin the taste of your dessert! For this Strawberry Orange Trifle, you will need one teaspoon of orange zest.

Once your pudding mixture has thickened, add your orange zest and give it a whirl. * Add your orange liqueur if making an adult-version, here.

Carefully fold in your whipped topping and place your bowl aside until you’re ready to assemble your trifle.

Before you can begin assembling your trifle, you need to prep your strawberries and angel food cake.

I sliced my quart of strawberries like so.

I then cubed a store-bought angel food cake.

With everything all chopped up, it’s time to put together your trifle.

Begin by placing half of your angel food cake in the bottom of your trifle bowl.

Arrange about half of your strawberries around the side of the bowl and over the cake.

Top the strawberry layer with half of your pudding mixture.

Repeat with the remaining angel food cake, almost all of the rest of the strawberries (leave a few for garnish), and the second half of the pudding mixture.

Add your leftover strawberries and an orange slice to the top of your trifle.

Cover the bowl and refrigerate at least one hour before serving.

Enjoy!

This Strawberry Orange Trifle is the perfect cold dessert for the upcoming summer season. It’s light and refreshing and has that “wow” factor with the presentation. Enjoy this easy no-bake dessert at your next outdoor gathering and let me know what you think. Happy Summer, folks!

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