This Easter we had a simple meal of ham biscuits, pimento cheese, salad and this Charlotte torte for dessert.

My cousin Emily and I worked in a grocery store bakery during college, and we learned how to make these! While I think they look so festive and impressive, they are very simple and this one did not even involve any baking! I just bought one angel food cake from the bakery and we used it for the layers.

While I did use a springform pan for this torte, you could easily use a regular cake pan (just may have trouble removing it) or a glass bowl or trifle dish would also work! I happened to find these soft lady fingers in the bakery section of the grocery store but you could also use whatever you layer you use for banana pudding… graham crackers, Nilla wafers, Pepperidge Farm cookies, etc.

For the filling, I used to always use vanilla pudding + one container Cool Whip and it’s great! And that is what I did here. But my preferred way is adding a can of sweetened condensed milk and an 8oz block of cream cheese to the plain vanilla pudding. It makes it more special, more rich and decadent.

Fruit Charlotte Torte

2 packs Lady Fingers

2 large (5.1oz) instant Vanilla pudding

4 cups milk

1 tub Cool Whip (optional- see notes below)

1 angel food cake (or 1-2 cake layers)

fruit to decorate- I love raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, grapes, and blueberries

Instructions

Make the pudding according to the box instructions.

*Note: To make it more decadent, try replacing the cool whip with one can of sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk) and one block of cream cheese, whipped, mixing well, before folding into the pudding.

Line the bottom of springform pan with cake layer. I keep cake layers 1/2 – 1 inch thick.

Line the sides of springform pan with lady fingers.

Add one layer of pudding mixture.

Follow with cake layer. Repeat until you reach the top, ending with pudding layer.

Then the fun part! Decorate with fruit! If I am taking this somewhere, I usually add the fruit with only a few hours to go. Especially cut fruit (like strawberries) can sometimes leak their juices a little. This one above was refrigerated overnight and nothing leaked at all.