Pinspired: Easy Lemon Berry Trifle

A friend's birthday was coming up and I wanted to make her something pretty and delicious. Being a less than stellar (<-actually pretty bad) baker gives me limited options. I found gorgeous ideas on Pinterest for trifles and gave this one a try.

I adapted the recipe to suit my limitations and ended up with a super easy, super quick trifle!

The original recipe called for pound cake and whipped cream made from scratch. Uhmmm, no. Not only am I a terrible baker, I am a terrible procrastinator, so I made it like this instead:

Easy Lemon Berry Trifle
INGREDIENTS:
Berries:
1 pint of each: blueberries, strawberries and blackberries1 lemon, juiced
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch

Lemon Cream
1 container whipped cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
11-ounce jar lemon curd

Cake
1 store bought lemon cream cake cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
(I used lemon cream cake, but you can use lemon or plain pound cake.The cake needs to be fairly dense in order to sustain the syrup and lemon cream layers without turning into a gooey mess)

DIRECTIONS:
Combine the berries, sugar, cornstarch, and lemon juice in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a simmer and cook just until the berries begin to break down.
Take the berries off the heat and let the mixture cool.

In a separate bowl, mix the whipped the cream with the vanilla . Fold the lemon curd into it until mixed thoroughly.

To assemble the trifle, spoon a layer of the cream into a  trifle bowl.
Add a layer of cake.  Then drizzle on about 1/3 of the berry syrup.
Spoon a layer of lemon cream over the top, smoothing to the sides. Repeat
Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

(The inspiration recipe says to finish with a layer of lemon cream, but things didn't work out that way for me...)