Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle Recipe

As beautiful as it delicious!

Strawberries say “Springtime!” to me, so I wanted to come up with a dessert that was springtime fresh, but just a little decadent, too. What could be more decadent than cheesecake? But, no, wait… I wanted something easy… and not QUITE so sinful.

You might have noticed that one of the trends in cuisine is to make a recipe deconstructed.  That is to say, you break it down, into its separate elements. I think I read that this first happened when a restaurant chef was cutting the first slice of cake, and it broke all to pieces, and he was determined not to waste that cake! So he called it a deconstructed carrot cake…or something similar. Well, that trend is everywhere in the food world now, and mostly people are doing it on purpose, these days. 🙂 But my thought was: why not take the elements of a strawberry cheesecake, but make it a bit easier and lighter, by deconstructing them and using a store bought angel food cake.

So Pinworthy!!! So heavenly!

Normally, I avoid angel food cake, because I feel a bit cheated by a cake that has no fat in it, and that practically melts away like cotton candy. So the challenge became to use a readily available store bought bakery item, and give it a bit more texture. Challenge received, and met. I cut my small store bought angel food cake into bite sized 1″ chunks. Then I lightly toasted the chunks in the oven, so that they would have a bit of crunch, yet still be able to absorb some of the cream, as cake does in a trifle.
For the cheesecake part, I whipped some softened cream cheese till it was light, and then gradually poured my whipped cream over that, and let my mixer do the work of incorporating them together. (I still had a few small cream cheese lumps, so if you want to avoid those, you could use sour cream, instead, and get the tang of cream cheese, with no lumps.) And then, for the graham cracker crust, I took a sleeve of graham crackers, mixed them with some sugar and melted butter to make a crumble, that I would sprinkle over top of the trifle.
I sliced the strawberries, sprinkled them with sugar to allow them to macerate for about 5 minutes, smashed them ever so slightly with a potato masher, just to speed things along a bit, and then sprinkled them with lime zest, to give a different kind of zing.

The result was heavenly. We kept going back for more, and more. With minimal effort, you will have a dessert that everyone loves! You have got to pin this one on Pinterest, or share it with your friends on Facebook. Easy, fresh, light(ish) and delicious!

You can see the toasted edges of the angel food cake in this photo. You can’t believe how tasty that graham cracker crumble was!

Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle

Ingredients:

For the Strawberries:
One 16 oz. container of strawberries, hulled and sliced
2 T. sugar
1 t. finely grated lime zest

For the Cream:
1 c. heavy cream
1/4. sugar
2 oz. cream cheese or 1/4 c. sour cream

4 c. angel food cake cubes that have been cut into 1″ cubes (bite sized)

For the Crumble:
1 sleeve of graham crackers
1 stick of butter, melted
3 T. sugar
1 pinch of salt

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 325º. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil.
Add the graham crackers to a food processor, pulse to break them up a bit and then process into fine crumbs. Add the 3 Tbs. sugar, a pinch of salt and the  melted butter and pulse until the mixture comes together in small nuggets. Transfer to the prepared baking sheet and bake until light golden brown, about 10 minutes. Let cool to room temperature. Set aside in a bowl, and use the same foil lined baking sheet to toast the cubes of angel food cake.

Raise the oven temperature to 375º. Spread cake pieces on foil-lined baking sheet. Toast until edges are golden brown but centers are still soft, 8–10 minutes. Let cool; set aside.

Using a potato masher, lightly mash the sliced strawberries, the 2 T. sugar, and 1 tsp. lime zest in a small bowl. Let sit 5 minutes.

While strawberries are developing their juice, Meanwhile, beat cream cheese until well aerated for several minutes, then slowly pour in cream, and remaining ¼ cup sugar and beat until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes.

Layer cake, strawberry  mixture, cream mixture and graham cracker crumble in glasses or small bowls; top with graham cracker crumble.