Summer Trifle

I don't know about you, but I used to think of trifles as a preserve of the winter months, especially Christmas when it is my family’s dessert of choice. So when I concocted this dessert in the summer, I wasn’t really sure, initially what I would call it.

I was making a jelly, yoghurt, cakey, fruit individual pudding and when I looked at it, I realised that it was essentially a trifle. A summer trifle.

I layered up fruit and jelly in individual jars and when set used some fat free greek yoghurt mixed with vanilla and granulated sweetener for a middle layer. I thought this was a bit like the custard filling in a trifle. And lastly I crumbled some cookies and strawberries on top.

As you can probably tell, I was going for a red, white and blue theme as Independence Day is coming up. I had blue jelly in the cupboard, and made some red cookies from last year’s ID4 recipe. The colours are obviously up to you. This will depend on the jelly, the fruit and cookies you use.

The outcome was a very eye catching trifle pudding, which wasn't really too bad on the old waistline. I used a sugar free jelly (you could use my recipe here), sweetener and the yoghurt, was 0% fat. The only ‘sinful’ bit was the cookies on top. You could use sponge cake in place of the cookies if you prefer.

Tip: I use old salsa dip jars to make the puddings in. The jars are washed thoroughly of course. In fact I used them before in a recipe for a Cinnamon Crunch Pudding.

Here’s how I made the summer trifle, but the amounts are quite vague!

Yield: 5 ‘jars’ or so

Ingredients:

One pack of jelly, prepared

Blueberries

0% Fat Greek Yoghurt (500ml approx.)

Teaspoon vanilla extract

2 teaspoon granulated sweetener

1 dozen cookies, crumbled (or some sponge cake)

Strawberries, chopped

Method:

Scatter blueberries in the bottom of each jar and fill with jelly, just until the berries are covered. Refrigerate the jars until the jelly is set.

Mix the yoghurt with the vanilla and sweetener. Spoon the yoghurt on top of the set jelly in each jar. 

Lastly scatter crumbled cookie/cake and chopped strawberries on top.

It is a very simple recipe, but tasty and adaptable to whatever fruit, jelly, cake you have lying around.

So, if you are in the mood for a bit of trifle in the summer months, why not? A trifle is for life, not just Christmas!

I am submitting this into this month's Treat Petite, hosted by Kat at The Baking Explorer. The theme is Summer. Need I say more?