Thursday, May 11, 2017

Berry Parfait for #ImprovCookingChallenge

Improv Cooking Challenge is a fun little game that we play each month.  Our host, Nichole of Cookaholic Wife assigns us two ingredients.  Our job is to make a dish that contains these two ingredients and share them on our blogs on the second Thursday of each month.


Our ingredients this month were Cookies and Cream.  So many wonderful and amazing possibilities with these two items.  I cannot wait to see what everyone decides to share this month.

I, of course, thought immediately of ice cream but I figured that would be a popular choice this month.  Then I thought of cake, cupcakes or cheesecake but, again, was hoping to do something different from the others.  I tried, really tried, to think of a savory dish but I just am not that creative. Should our friend, Cam, join us this month, she may go savory.  She is very talented like that.  Me....not so much.


I ended up making a quick and easy dessert that I served to our friends, John and Kirsten, after a weeknight meal that we shared together before Kirs and I went to help out a friend and John and Frank worked on stuff for the house.  I served this Chicken Salad for dinner along with Apple Cheddar Chop Bread. We had this delicious parfait when we were done with our chores and together again at the house.


This was a perfect dessert for a busy day followed by a busy night.  It took me only minutes to put it together, using bakery cookies to save time.  They held up well in the refrigerator and were waiting and ready to be served as time permitted.

Berry Parfait

3 oz. Neufchatel Cheese
2 c. heavy cream
4 large bakery cookies, I used lemon zest sugar cookies
6 large strawberries, hulled and cut into blueberry size dice
1/2 pint blueberries
1/2 pint raspberries
1/2 pint blackberries

Place cheese into the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and beat until light and fluffy.  Scrape the bowl and add the heavy cream.  Starting at low speed, whisk until cream starts to thicken.  Increase speed and beat until light and fluffy.  Set aside.

Place cookies in the bowl of a food processor and pulse making crumbs.  Set aside.

Rinse and dry the berries.  Set aside.

Place a Tablespoon of cookie crumbs in the bottom of each of 4  deep wine glasses.  ( I used stemless wine glasses but you could use glasses with stems).  Add a dollop of cream on top of the cookie crumbs.  Add some berries,  another dollop of cream and some more of the cookie crumbs.  Repeat twice more.  

Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.  Print Recipe


More Cookies and Cream Creations



9 comments:

  1. Looks delicious! I love desserts with fresh berries.

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  2. Nothing better than lemon & berries for a summer dessert! I love how beautiful your parfait looks in that stemless wine glass.

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  3. What a wonderful dessert this would be!!

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  4. This has breakfast written all over it! It sounds lovely and I'm glad you chose something so different. I'm with you...a savory cookies and cream dish just doesn't seem to come to mind. I think sticking with a sweet recipe was the way too go!

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  5. I love a berry parfait and those look so good. I'm thinking I need to head on over to the good grocery store (30 miles away) this week so I can pick some fresh berries up. (I'm boycotting my local grocery store until they stop naming the rats running through the store, never mind eradicating them completely).

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    1. Ugh, Sid.....we don't have rat problems (that I know of) but my local grocer doesn't carry anything that might be considered out of the ordinary. It doesn't pay for them because evidently the few of us who like to cook go about 30 miles to get the ingredients we need.

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