Publix Is Celebrating Berry Season With 5 New Desserts

With the arrival of warm weather comes all sorts of fresh fruit desserts, and there's nothing quite like a temperate spring day with a nice slice of Chantilly cake. It's traditionally either a white or vanilla layer cake with assorted fresh berries, berry jam, and Chantilly cream — a sweetened vanilla whipped cream. Slight variations exist, like at Publix, which adds almond to the cake and mascarpone to the cream — and this one is so popular that Publix is giving it five new spinoff recipes.

Four-packs of Chantilly Berry Vanilla Cupcakes mimic the cake's layering by adorning the mascarpone Chantilly icing with raspberries and blueberries, and filling the cake itself with vanilla custard. And for an intriguing dessert mashup, the Chantilly Berry Tres Leches tweaks this Latin American staple with a medley of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries — and of course, mascarpone Chantilly cream.

But Publix's new Chantillyverse isn't just a series of cakes. Chantilly-style Croissants are stuffed with a mixed-berry filling and mascarpone-flavored cheese and dusted with powdered sugar and almonds. A Chantilly Yogurt Parfait uses vanilla yogurt topped with crunchy cookie crumbles and assorted berries. And, for a limited time, there is also Chantilly Cake Ice Cream: white cake-flavored ice cream featuring real cake pieces and ribbons of berries throughout.

Chantilly cream is named after a French castle, where it is thought to have been invented in the 1600s. But Chantilly cake is a 21st-century invention from Chaya Conrad, a former bakery manager at a Whole Foods Market in New Orleans. It's little wonder, then, that Whole Foods' Berry Chantilly Cake is one of customers' all-time favorite grocery store cakes. It has spawned countless copycats and spinoffs, including versions also made by Conrad, but the original still has its classic appeal.

It's also little wonder that customers revolted when the grocery chain tried to change the cake's recipe in 2024, replacing fresh berries inside with a bland fruit jam — though, confusingly, fresh berries were still included as a side dish. Within a month, Whole Foods reversed this controversial change to the Chantilly cake recipe and gave in to customer demand.

It's not just Whole Foods or even Chantilly Cake — the success of Conrad's original recipe has put Chantilly cream on the modern culinary map. It's also part of what makes Trader Joe's Vanilla Mini Sheet Cake so delicious. There are no berries in sight with this version, so it's not a true Chantilly cake, but the Chantilly buttercream frosting goes perfectly with vanilla cake for an understated but highly satisfying treat.