Easy Easter Trifle Recipe

This Easter trifle makes a beautiful Easter dessert that tastes as great as it looks! Layers of funfetti cake, creamy pudding, and whipped cream make this layered Easter dessert a showstopper in taste and design!

I’m a big fan of trifle recipes because they are the easiest desserts ever. And anytime I hear the word trifle, it makes me think of that Friends Thanksgiving episode where Rachel makes the world’s worst trifle ever.

And when I get to think about Friends, it automatically brings a smile to my face.

Anyway, I’ve shared a couple of different trifles in the past like this Who Pudding and this Oreo Dirt Cake and people have loved them so much, I thought it’d be fun to share a colorful Easter trifle recipe that’s great for the upcoming holiday!

This trifle is a great last-minute option because it contains no real cooking, mixing, or combining involved unless you consider adding food coloring cooking!

With this being the simplest Easter trifle, there’s no reason you can’t whip this up last minute to enjoy after a little glazed ham and smashed potatoes for Easter dinner!

• Pudding – I recommend vanilla pudding mix to keep things simple but you can also substitute one of those with cheesecake pudding if you’re prefer. I recommend using whole milk with the pudding to keep it as thick and creamy as possible.
• Food coloring – I recommend liquid food coloring for this since the pudding is closer to a liquid than a solid. Go with pastel colors to get the pretty Easter colors.
• Cake – any funfetti or rainbow chip box cake mix will work; you’ll also need the ingredients to make the cake itself, typically eggs, vegetable oil, and water. And technically you could use white cake mix, I just like the flavor and color of the funfetti!
• Whipped topping – if you’re not a big fan of Cool Whip, you can substitute this with the homemade whipped cream I used in my Who Pudding instead.
• Candy grass – you can get edible grass at many grocery stores like Target or you can them on Amazon here.
• Candies – You can get creative with decorating the top of the trifle. In these pictures, I did little mini nests with eggs but you could also do a big nest with Peeps (like I did in my viral TikTok video). Or you could even put something like these butterscotch haystacks (that look like nests) on top instead.

There’s really not a lot to this recipe but just in case you’ve never made a trifle before, I’m going to walk you through step by step how to make this! You can also watch the video in this post if you’re more of a visual person!

1 – bake and cut the cake

Start by baking the cake according to the package directions. The one important note is that you should in your baking pan with parchment paper prior to pouring in the cake batter so that it’s easy to pull out once cooled – this will be important for cutting cake squares later!

Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing from the pan and placing on a cooling rack to cool completely. Having the parchment paper under the cake should make removing it easy!

Once the cake is completely cool, use a serrated knife to cut the cake into 1″ pieces.

2 – make and color the pudding

Next, you’ll need to prepare each box of pudding in a separate bowl as directed on the package. Once you’ve mixed the pudding, place a few drops of blue food coloring in one bowl of pudding and a few drops of pink in the other. Or you can use different colors – I just liked the blue and pink for Easter.

Mix each well until color is uniform throughout the pudding.

Place the pudding in the refrigerator and allow it to chill for 5-10 minutes or until it’s completely set before adding to the trifle.

3 – assemble the easter trifle

Now it’s time to put the trifle together!

Fill the bottom of your trifle dish or a large glass bowl with cake pieces. Make sure to fill it completely with no gaps so the pudding doesn’t seep through.

After you have the base cake layer done, spoon one of the bowls of pudding over the cake pieces.

Top with a layer of whipped topping.

Put another layer of cake pieces over the whipped topping then repeat the pudding layer with the other color and top that with whipped topping.

Chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours to allow everything to set together.

4 – decorate the top of the trifle

While the trifle is chilling, make the bird nests from edible candy grass. Take a 1/2″ thick bunch of candy grass and, starting at one end, spin the grass tightly into a circle to create a nest.

Make two nests of each color and place them on top of the chilled trifle.

Add 2-3 candy eggs to each nest to finish it off. Or if you’d rather not use candy eggs, you can also use something that looks like eggs, kind of like jelly beans!

Or if you’re feeling lazy – you can make just one big nest in the center with large chocolate eggs (like on my Easter egg cake!).

5 – serve chilled

And that’s it – the trifle is ready to serve! Keep it chilling in the fridge until you’re ready to serve (and put any leftovers back in the fridge).

Recipe FAQs

Don’t just serve Easter trifle for dessert, try one of these complementary Easter recipes at your next Easter celebration!

• Easter egg cake – a gorgeous layered cake made out of white cake, pastel swirled buttercream frosting, and topped with Easter eggs! Plus, an Easter surprise is hidden inside!
• Easy Easter cake – the easiest cake recipe ever, plus it’s colorful and delicious!
• Carrot cake – fresh carrots get added into this gorgeous cake that’s topped with cinnanmon cream cheese frosting!
• Chocolate nests – easy chocolate nests made out of chocolate cereal, peanut butter, and more chocolate!
• Chocolate dipped peeps – did you know that Peeps actually taste good when you dip them in chocolate??