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I recently had a slice from a bowl of what was presented as a cake containing:
The design was as you would see in a bowl of traditional trifle.
I called this dessert a trifle because of the soft biscuits and jelly top layer, but is this Correct or is it more accurately a cheesecake?
Questions like 'does this thing count as X' are hard to answer because terms for food don't generally have strict definitions and they vary hugely between regions and cultures. It's most useful to be pragmatic, to try to describe food in a helpful way that doesn't confuse people or lead them to expect the wrong thing.
As a British English speaker, what you've described doesn't sound like what I would expect from the name 'trifle', because in a trifle I would expect:
You mention cheesecake which is normally a baked or set cream cheese mixture, so I assume that the overall experience of the food is substantially different to a typical trifle. But if you're trying to convey the visuals, then something layered in a bowl certainly looks more trifle-like than the typical cheesecake. Use the words that you think will be helpful.
Foods don't always categorise tidily, and this seems to be a sort of hybrid. I'd say it's closer to a cheesecake.
Cheesecakes can have a variety of bases, though soft biscuits are rare. They can also have a jelly topping, or, as in my profile picture a thickened fruit topping (cooked blueberries with arrowroot in that case).
In trifle, the biscuits or cake in the bottom layer are normally soakedin the jelly; with some common choices that's the only reason they're soft.
Trifle also usually has whipped cream, no cheese, though whipped mascarpone or cream cheese could easily be used.
Overall I'd probably call it a cheesecake trifle (I wouldn't call it a cake, perhaps a dessert).
