Yogurt Cream and Berry Parfaits

Yesterday was the 4th of July. We went over to my sister Helen’s house for a barbecue. My aunt Miriam and her beau were coming over, as well as my uncle Manny, his lovely wife Melissa, and their two beautiful daughters, Sierra and Aspen. We hadn’t seen them in years so we were all looking forward to the festivities. Manny’s my uncle but he’s younger than I am. His sister, Miriam, is my age. How, you ask? Well, my grandfather was married three times and had a total of 13 children. My Mom was child #2 by his first wife. Manny and Miriam are children #11 and 12 by his third wife. Hence the huge generation gap, and that explains why I have an aunt and uncle my age and younger.

Anyway, I wanted to make something red-white-and-blue to take to the barbecue for dessert so decided that yogurt cream parfaits would be good. They’re refreshingly cool on a hot summer day. I put them in mini champagne flutes and thought they looked absolutely adorable.

I whipped up 30 of the little confections the day before the barbecue and had them chilling in the fridge all neatly lined up on a wooden tray like patriotic little soldiers. When we were finally ready to leave for Helen’s house the next day, I painstakingly pulled the tray out of the fridge and walked ever so slowly towards the front door, carefully balancing the tray in my two hands. I have no idea how but to my utter distress, right when I reached the door, one of the little flutes began to teeter precariously on the tray. I watched in horror as almost in slow motion, it toppled over and hit the one next to it and one by one they all began toppling over like dominoes! I screamed as I juggled the tray in a futile effort to stop the disaster which only served to make matters worse! Some of the desserts crashed to the floor while others flung their contents onto my chest and down to my feet. Nooooooo!!!

Old Goat comes running over and sees me standing there in the middle of a huge mess of red, white and blue, with yogurt cream splashed on my nose and running down my pretty blue blouse. “What are you doing?” he asked perplexed as he took the tray from my stunned hands. I took one look at him and burst into tears as I ran upstairs to our bedroom. All my hard work of the day before, gone in about 5 seconds!

I washed up and changed my shirt, then went back downstairs to find that my sweet Old Goat had mopped up the floor, and with the help of No. 1’s girlfriend, was trying to salvage and wipe clean the flutes that had just tipped over but remained safely on the tray. So, long story short, they managed to rescue about a dozen of the 30 desserts. They looked a little worse for wear, but we brought them to Helen’s house anyway.

YOGURT CREAM & BERRY PARFAITS

• 1 cup plain, honey, or vanilla greek yogurt
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 3 tbsp. or ¼ cup sugar
• strawberries, washed, dried and hulled
• blueberries, washed and dried
• extra sugar (optional)

1. Chop strawberries into small pieces. If strawberries aren’t sweet, sprinkle a little extra sugar over them, toss together and set aside.
2. Place greek yogurt and whipping cream in bowl of electric mixer.
3. Beat until soft peaks form.
4. Add sugar and beat until well combined.
5. In little flutes or parfait glasses, layer yogurt cream, strawberries, more yogurt cream, blueberries, and end with yogurt cream.
6. Chill in refrigerator until ready to serve.

NOTE:  If desired, you can garnish the top of each parfait with a blueberry, a small strawberry, some finely chopped almonds, or a sprinkling of granola.

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Mixed Berry Trifle

I was asked to bring the dessert for the family’s 4th of July barbecue this year. I thought it would be fun to fix something red, white and blue. And what could be better than using ripe red strawberries, sweet blueberries and creamy custard? So I decided to make a berry trifle.

A trifle is an old English dessert. It’s traditionally made with sponge cake (usually dipped in sherry or some other wine), fruit, gelatin and whipped cream. I made this trifle without the alcohol, gelatin, or whipped cream, but it was still wiped out! Bashful decorated the top of the trifle with a berry flag which turned out really cute. It was the perfect dessert to take to the barbecue!

MIXED BERRY TRIFLE

• 1 package white cake mix (or bake your own from scratch)
• 1 can evaporated milk
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup flour
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ cup butter
• fresh strawberries, hulled and cut in half lengthwise
• fresh blueberries

1. Bake cake according to package directions. You could use yellow cake mix if you don’t like white.
2. Cool the cake completely, then cut it into 1-inch chunks.
3. In a medium sauce pan, mix together the evaporated milk, sugar, flour, egg, egg yolk, and salt with a wire whisk.
4. Cook over low heat, stirring continuously, until thick and smooth.
5. Remove custard from heat and stir in butter until completely incorporated.
6. Allow custard to cool, then assemble trifle by layering cake, fruit, and custard in a trifle bowl. End with custard layer on top.
7. If desired, you could make a flag on top of the trifle with strawberries and blueberries as pictured.