Recipe: Blueberry Breakfast Trifle

Let’s all thank the Brits for the trifle, which we are going to take full advantage of here to turn leftover cake into breakfast. Breakfast trifle will make you look like the Patron Saint of Brunch (or hey, just a cool mom) and it’s easy, pretty, and delicious.

So what is a breakfast trifle, you ask? It has layers of tangy yogurt, studded with ripe blueberries and candied ginger, all sandwiched between vanilla cake and granola. Sounds like a real treat, right? That’s because it is!

The key to serving cake for breakfast is to balance it with fresh fruit, zingy ginger, and tangy yogurt. You can use full-fat or 2% here, but using traditional yogurt (rather than Greek yogurt) makes for a creamier scoop.

This breakfast trifle was created as a way to use up leftover cake from our one-bowl vanilla cake — say, after you make this raspberry ice cream cake — or when you have a leftover cake languishing in the freezer. You can use almost any cake you have left over — pound cake or even banana bread would be delicious here, but it’s our one-bowl vanilla cake that inspired this idea, so it gets to star in the debut recipe.

Serve this trifle just after assembly, as the granola tends to get soggy if it sits for longer than an hour. If you need to make this ahead, whip up the sweetened yogurt mixture and cube the cake and chop the ginger the night before. It will only take a few minutes to assemble in the morning.

Serves 8

Cake, yellow, prepared from recipe without frosting 1 (9-inch) round vanilla cake
4 cups plain whole or 2% yogurt
3 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger, divided
2 1/2 cups blueberries (about 1 pound), divided
3 cups granola, divided

Split the cake layer in half horizontally, then cut into 1-inch cubes; set aside.

Whisk the yogurt, honey, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of the ginger together in a large bowl.

Spread 1/2 cup of the yogurt mixture in the bottom of a glass serving or trifle bowl. Scatter half of the cake cubes evenly over the yogurt, then sprinkle on 1 cup of the blueberries, and follow with 1 1/2 cups of the granola. Spread 1 1/2 cups of the yogurt mixture on top of the granola. Repeat the cake, blueberry, and granola layers one more time. Top with the final 2 cups of yogurt.

Garnish with the remaining 1/2 cup of blueberries and 2 tablespoons of ginger. Serve immediately.

• Cake: We used this one-bowl vanilla cake in this recipe.
• Make ahead: The yogurt mixture can be prepared 1 day in advance and refrigerated. The cake can also be baked and cooled in advance. Trifle is best served immediately after assembly.
• Leftover cake: You may have 1 cup of cake cubes leftover after assembly. You can discard them or crumble them up and add them to the garnish.