Fresh Fruit Trifle with Macaron Crumbles (Rich and Creamy!)

This showstopper fresh fruit trifle is the perfect way to showcase beautiful summer berries. It’s layered with whipped cream, lemon curd, and loads of berries for a light and delicious dessert. Layering in some crumbled macarons is optional, but they add lots of gorgeous colour and texture. If you’re a macaron baker, this recipe is a great way to use up your failed macarons!

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Video Tutorial: Fresh Fruit Trifle with Macaron Crumbles

This video shows how to make the trifle with mango curd, while the photos in this post show it with lemon curd—both are delicious options!

Why You’ll Love this Recipe for Fresh Fruit Trifle with Macaron Crumbles

• It makes great use of failed macarons that may have otherwise gone to waste. Unless underbaked failed macarons are still perfectly good and delicious. Most failed macarons just have cosmetic issues like cracks, bubbles, or hollows, making them undesirable to use for finished macarons. The ingredients (especially the almond flour) can be really expensive. Instead of throwing out perfectly good food, you can crumble them up to add some beautiful pops of colour and a yummy crunchy texture in this trifle!
• It’s so easy to customize! You can use whatever fresh fruits, berries, jams, curds, or creams you have on hand or enjoy making. Use cookie butter or Nutella to add some richness to the trifle, if that’s your jam! You can even use frozen berries, though they will let off more juice than fresh berries and might make the trifle somewhat watery. Follow my recipe, or just use it as a starting point to riff on and make this dessert completely yours!
• It’s colourful! Macarons are usually made in lots of different colours. If your collection of failures came from lots of different batches, your trifle will end up so colourful and cheerful-looking. Consider it a consolation prize to all the frustration of your batches of macarons not working out!
• It’s already gluten-free. Macarons are usually gluten-free (depending on what recipe you used to make them, of course!) The fillings I suggest using in this recipe are also gluten-free. If you choose to swap out the fillings with anything else just make sure those are gluten-free as well, if avoiding gluten is important to you.

Tips for Success

• Let the trifle rest in the fridge for a couple hours before serving. Macarons have the best texture when they have a chance to soak up some moisture from the filling(s) they’re sandwiched with, and the same thing is true in this trifle. The macarons will end up a little soft and chewy, yet hopefully still be a little bit crunchy. A little fridge time gives the fillings a chance to set up as well, so it’s less
• Use a large clear glass bowl with high sides to assemble this trifle in, if you have one. It’s so satisfying to see all the colours and layers through the sides. Have fun alternating the layers or even arranging the fruits along the sides of the bowl to make a beautiful pattern.
• Have fun decorating the top of the trifle by arranging sliced fruit into nice patterns. Consider piping on swirls of whipped cream, and topping those with berries or even filled macarons.

Ingredients for Making Fresh Fruit Trifle with Macaron Crumbles

• Fresh fruit for layering in with the cream, curd, and other fillings. Frozen fruit is OK to use too, but let it thaw out and drain before layering into the trifle. Frozen fruit tends to let off a lot of juice as it thaws, which can make your trifle too watery.
• Heavy cream, AKA whipping cream, adds a delicious lightness to the trifle. You need a cream with at least 30% fat content for making whipped cream, but at least 35% fat content is preferable.
• Vanilla pudding mix is my favourite way to stabilize whipped cream, so it stays nice and fluffy for several days. It’s a super easy method. As a bonus, it adds a little bit of sweetness and flavour to the whipped cream, too! You could use cream cheese or gelatin to stabilize your whipped cream instead, if you prefer. That said, if you’re going to eat the whole trifle the same day, there’s no need to stabilize the whipped cream at all—just whip it up with as much powdered (confectioner’s) sugar to reach your desired level of sweetness until it reaches stiff peaks.
• Lemon or mango curd, jam, or other fillings. I like using lemon or mango curd, because it adds a nice tart contrast to the rich whipped cream. The video of this recipe shows how to make mango curd, while the photos in this post show this trifle with my lemon curd recipe. You can use any jam you like, Nutella, cookie butter, caramel, chocolate ganache, or just about any sweet filling you like!
• Failed macarons are a great way to add some crunch to contrast with the rich and smooth fillings and juicy fruit. If you don’t have macarons, just crumble up any cookies you like instead.

Equipment You’ll Need

Apart from standard kitchen equipment, you will need:

• A stand or hand mixer makes short work of making the whipped cream, though you could do this part by hand if you prefer (and have good stamina and upper-body strength!)
• A large clear glass dish (or better yet, a trifle dish) to show off all the beautiful layers! You can of course use any large food-safe dish you have, but it’s nice to let the layers show through if you can.

Ideas for Customizing your Fresh Fruit Trifle

There are so many possibilities for mixing and matching the fillings, here are just a few ideas for flavour combinations:

• Banana S’mores Trifle: Layer slices of banana with whipped cream, crumbled graham crackers, chocolate ganache, and mini marshmallows. Toast the marshmallows with a kitchen torch before layering them in the trifle for some campfire vibes!
• Apple Pie Trifle: Use canned apple pie filling (or cook apple chunks with brown sugar and cinnamon until soft) with whipped cream and crumbled baked pie crust or graham crackers.
• Piña Colada Trifle: Layer pieces of fresh or canned pineapple with toasted coconut flakes, pineapple curd, and crumbled vanilla cookies or cake. If you’re making pineapple curd from scratch, fold in a little Malibu rum after it cools down. Add coconut and rum extract to the whipped cream to amp up the piña colada flavour even more.
• Banana Split Trifle: Layer slices of banana with whipped cream, sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and maraschino cherries. Decorate the trifle pipe swirls of whipped cream with a cherry on top!
• Matcha & Raspberry Trifle: Whip a few tablespoons of matcha powder into the whipped cream. Layer fresh raspberries and raspberry jam with the matcha whipped cream and vanilla cookie crumbles.

How to Serve Fresh Fruit Trifle

Let the trifle chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. This helps everything sort of meld together and lets the fillings stabilize. If you used macaron (or other cookie) crumbles, this time lets them soak up some moisture from the other fillings and develop a delicious texture. I like to use a large spoon to scoop out portions of the trifle into small bowls or plates. If you want to get extra fancy you could use martini or wide-rimmed wine glasses to serve the trifle in.

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