I always volunteer my culinary services for family birthdays – first with just dessert because I was sick and tired of choking down the same stale store bought pie – then gradually I started to take over the main course. For a recent combined birthday party for two of my aunts, I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm (glorious!) weather and grilled lamb loin chops for dinner and made a trifle for dessert. I usually think of trifles for summer backyard barbeques – which is what we were having so, hey, who cares if it’s early March? I wanted to try something new and easy, so trifle it was!

You’ll Need:
1 pound cake (I used Sara Lee family size)
1 quart heavy whipping cream
1 jar of lemon curd
2 pints strawberries, hulled and quartered
raspberries – I used 1/2 lb.
blueberries (I used one 1 lb)
Fresh mint, muddled or crushed
1 tsp. vanilla
1 vanilla bean
juice of a lemon
zest of lemon
3/4th cup cream sherry

Wash the berries and mix them up in a large bowl. Pour the cream sherry over them, gently mix again. Cover and let it sit in the fridge while you make the whipped cream.
Slice the pound cake into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
Extract seeds from vanilla bean (see this video if you don’t know how)
With an electric mixer, whip up your cream
As it begins to peak, add the vanilla and vanilla bean
Once the cream has been adequately whipped, gently mix in the zest and fresh juice of the lemon.
Begin to add the lemon curd, one tablespoon at a time as you work it through with a rubber spatula, until you reach the ratio of sugar/lemon flavor/cream you desire. I ended up using about 3/4th of my 11 oz. jar.
Crush or muddle the mint and manually mix it into the cream
In a large bowl (glass makes for prettier presentation but whatever) with a fairly even bottom-to-rim ratio begin to layer:
- pound cake
- whipped cream
- berries
Keep layering in that order until it’s all gone or you’ve reached the top of your bowl. You might have some excess berries to set aside for later.
Cover and let it chill in the fridge until you want to eat it – mine was for about 90-120 minutes.

Take a big ass spoon and dish into bowls. Add extra berries and serve!

Notes:
- I don’t think I paid much attention to the video I recommended or maybe I didn’t use enough but adding just one vanilla bean seemed to do fuck all for flavor. I ended up adding a lot more vanilla extract. First time working with a vanilla bean and it’s a bust!
- I thought my cream was too lemon-sugary but everyone else said I was crazy so I’m going with majority ruling on the amount. I stand by the use of lemon curd but next time I’d use less.