Millions of Peaches, Fresh Peach Trifle

There really isn't anything better than a perfectly ripe, juicy peach.  The juices dripping down you arm as you reach up to take a succulent bite, then dripping down your chin making a sticky mess of everything.  Mmmmm, how I love late summer and using the glorious, fresh produce that is just everywhere!

I was in charge of making a dessert this last week for our Theatre Group.  Yes, it is as tony as it sounds.  I have a theatre group.  If you can call theatre, the local musical theater here that does comedy spoofs, theatre.  

I was thinking I needed something fairly easy as I was going to be having an extremely busy day, the day of the show.  Trifle!!  As I was strolling through the produce section of my grocery store and examining the strawberries (as that is usually what I would put in a trifle), I realized that it is in fact peach season right now, and I was fairly confident I could substitute peaches for strawberries to great effect...affect...urrggghhh!!! Got it, it's totally effect.  It was a good choice because I was able to save some time by doing some of the prep work the night before: Diced the pound cake and made the pudding.  

You know what, this trifle worked out better than I could have imagined.  The Mister is not normally what I would call a peach person, well, I mean, if you put it that way, he is, but that's a different kind of peaches....anyway, back to my trifle.  He doesn't really like fresh peaches.  Does that stop me from basing an entire dessert around them?  Nawww.  After taking one bite, he proclaimed this his FAVORITE DESSERT EVER!!!  I mean, hell ya!  I am no longer going to avoid the fresh peaches in whatever I want to make, ever again.

One of the menfolk there, had on his plate, a few ribs and a giant pile of peach trifle and nothing else.  I'll call that a win.

So, if you're looking for an easy and impressive dessert, two of my favorite criteria in a dessert, this is the one for you.  Plus, it's got layers, and as we all know, everybody loves layers.

Fresh Peach Trifle

2 Pound Cakes, I used Sara Lee's in the freezer section, diced into 1 inch cubes

Nilla Wafers

A large Vanilla pudding, prepared (you could be extremely fancy and make homemade pudding, I didn't and it was still amazing)

1/2 to 1 Cup Orange Juice (this is to add a little bit of sog to your trifle.  You do NOT want a dry trifle, eww, also, I think trifle is quite often made with booze instead of O.J., but this is Utah, people)

Peach butter (it's basically cooked peach jam) My recipe for peach butter

8 or so large, very ripe peaches, sliced

1 Pint Whipped cream, whipped with vanilla and sugar (just make it like you normally would)

Take a large, glass bowl.  You want it to be clear so that you can show off how fancy you are and begin to layer the ingredients.

Begin with a layer of pound cake.  Over the pound cake you are going to pour some of the O.J.

2: The pudding.  Spread it over the pound cake (remember to only use a portion of the pudding as you are going to need more as you go up the bowl.  Pay attention to your bowl's shape, mine was narrow at the bottom and wide at the top so I had to adjust my ingredients accordingly and didn't do such a great job portioning it out)

3: A layer of freshly sliced peaches.  I actually sliced the peaches right over the bowl so all the peachy juices would be included.

4: Now a drizzle of peach butter

5: Next comes the Nilla Wafers.  This gives the trifle a little texture.

6: A layer of whipped cream (See the above note about the pudding, you are going to need a bunch of this for the top).

Repeat the layers, end on whipped cream.

If you are wise, you'll save more of the whipped cream for the top.  As I was a little short on whipped cream, I just dolloped it in the middle and left the outer edges showing the peaches.  Turned out very pretty. I had also hoped to make a gorgeous peachy design at the very top, in the middle of the whipped cream, but had no peaches left.  Oh well, no peachy design needed cause it was that good.

And, awesome mom I am, I made my girls and their babysitter individual peach trifles.  I'm cool like that.

Aren't they precious?  Anything in a mason jar is simply precious. I just dolloped ingredients in one at a time. I only got one layer of each component in, but it was just fine, I heard no complaints.

To be honest, my kids getting their own version of this peach trifle is really the reason I didn't have enough whipped cream and pudding for the other layers.  I planned perfectly and if I wasn't such a good mom then my dessert would have been a true show-stopper.  I blame them...I mean, I love my kids and am glad I could make them a tasty treat.  :)

When you dish this dessert out, make sure you dig deep with your spoon so everybody can enjoy all the layer-y goodness.

Thanks for reading!

Heather