Red Velvet Cheesecake Trifle

With a red velvet cake mix and a few other basic ingredients, you can make this beautiful Red Velvet Cheesecake Trifle. This dessert is as easy to make as it is indulgent!

You don’t need to spend all day in the kitchen to impress your sweetheart with a gorgeous dessert this Valentine’s day. With a prepared boxed cake and only a few other simple ingredients, you will be able to make this indulgent and beautiful dessert. Moist layers of red velvet cake are nestled together with fluffy and sweet cheesecake filling. This dessert is so good, you’ll want to make it all year round!

Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this Red Velvet Cheesecake Trifle:

• Prepared red velvet cake, plus ingredients listed on the box: make sure you also have the ingredients listed on the box to prepare! If you don’t like red velvet, try strawberry cake mix which is a beautiful pink color! Or, if you aren’t trying for a Valentine’s day red/pink theme, feel free to use any type of box cake you like.
• Cream cheese: a must for cheesecake filling of course!
• Heavy whipping cream: this adds airiness to the cheesecake filling
• Sour cream: this adds a slight tangy quality to the cheesecake filling that helps cut some of the richness from the cream cheese and whipped cream.
• Powdered sugar
• Vanilla extract

Helpful Tips

• To get more even layers, divide up the cake before adding it the the trifle bowl. So, if you are making one large one, cut the cake in thirds for three layers. Or, if you want to make 9 individual trifles, cut the cake into 9 pieces. Then divide each of those 9 pieces into three. This is also why I prefer to bake the cake in a 9 x 13 inch pan, it’s easier to cut the cake up into even sized pieces.

• If you want to make individual trifles and have chosen a narrow, tall glass (great for getting beautiful layers!), save yourself some trouble and try piping the filling into the glass rather than using a spoon. This takes more initial set-up time, but you will be rewarded with beautiful, even layers. And without smudges of filling along the sides of the glass! This tip will really help a lot if you’ve chosen a glass that bends in slightly at the rim, like this wine glass:

• If you want to use this piping trick, make sure to choose a large piping tip to make quick work of building your trifles.

• The total volume of this recipe is approximately 14 cups. Your recipe may vary from this estimate depending on the cake you use, how tightly you pack the cake in your trifle bowl, and how fluffy your cheesecake filling turns out. But, this is a good guide to determine which trifle bowl(s) you want to use. See the next section for more tips on choosing a container!

What Container To Use for Red Velvet Cheesecake Trifle

For this recipe, you can make one large trifle, or individual-sized trifles. The choice is yours! Whether you are making one large trifle or many small ones, make sure to use a clear container (either glass or clear plastic) so you can see the beautiful layers. And it would be even better to have tall, straight sides. This way you will have the height to build thicker layers that will stay more defined.

Choosing a Large Trifle Bowl

To make one large trifle, I used a glass trifle bowl that holds 3 quarts. As you can see from the photo, the top layer was mounded up a bit. And, I did have a small piece of cake leftover that wouldn’t fit. So, you could use a 3 quart capacity trifle bowl or even one a tiny bit larger.

If you have a much larger trifle bowl, you may want to make 1.5 times the recipe, or even double it. Just measure the capacity of the bowl you want to use beforehand. That way, you can make sure you will have enough ingredients to fill it.

Choosing Containers for Individual Trifles

As I mentioned in the Helpful Tips section, the total volume of this recipe is approximately 14 cups. Your results may vary a bit of course. But, this is a good guideline to determine how many containers you need, based on the serving size you want for your individual trifles.

For me, a good size for individual servings is 1.5 cups. This gives you enough ingredients to work with to form defined layers. So, with this recipe you can make about 9 individual trifles. You can still make smaller or larger individual trifles than that of course; in fact, these containers below are a 2 cup capacity. But speaking from personal experience, this was quite a large serving for one person to eat. Not that it couldn’t be done of course (ahem).

When it comes to selecting what to actually put the trifles in, you have some options. I have seen individual trifle bowls for sale, which are super adorable! But honestly, it’s probably not something I would use more than one or two times a year. So, if you don’t want to invest in individual trifle bowls (totally understandable), you can get creative with what you have. Wine glasses, ice cream sundae containers, or small drinking glasses would all work!

Making Red Velvet Cheesecake Trifle Ahead of Time

Another great thing about this recipe is that you can do some of the prep ahead of time! Each component has it’s own timeline, however, so here is a quick rundown:

• You can prepare the cake up to 4 days ahead, just keep it tightly covered at room temperature.
• For the filling, you can make this up to one day ahead. The cream cheese helps to stabilize the whipped cream, so I found the filling stayed perfectly fresh and fluffy even when I made it one day early. Just keep the filling in its bowl, tightly covered, and store in the fridge.
• Since there aren’t any berries or other watery ingredients that would start to bleed and get soggy, you actually can assemble the trifle(s) up to 3 hours ahead and the layers will still look fresh and beautiful. Keep it in the fridge, loosely covered so the top cheesecake layer doesn’t dry out. (You may need to touch up the top cheesecake layer, or, better yet, add the top layer right before serving!).
• If you are adding any garnishes like sprinkles, cake crumbs or candy, do that right before serving to make sure they look as fresh as possible! Especially with sprinkles – some of the color can start to bleed into the topping pretty quickly and not look as nice. So save garnishing for the very end!

If you’ve tried this recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake Trifle, please let me know what you thought about it in the comments down below, I would love to hear from you! You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to see more delicious recipes from Nibble and Dine!

And do you need a delicious and beautifully pink drink to serve with this trifle on Valentine’s day? Check out my recipe for Strawberry Honey Lime Mimosas!

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