Scrap It!
If you’re not a baker, you may not realize there is a LOT of leftover cake after a tiered cake order. You know that “dome” that forms when you bake a cake? No matter the effort to minimize that, there is always something to be lopped off. Not baring to throw it out, I diligently wrap it up and throw it in the freezer every time. Once in a while, my freezer becomes full and I have a choice to make. Do something with it? Or throw it out? If I do something, what will it be? Before you say it…I HATE CAKE POPS! That may not be a popular answer but I really, really, really, hate them. If you want cake pops, I’m not your gal. They are an enormous pain in the butt, take up a lot of space, and aren’t even that cute.
This weekend, I was invited to a casual dinner party on the patio at Chroma, a hip apartment complex in The Grove. Typically, my friends know I will bring dessert. Unless they tell me not to, I begin plotting as soon as I receive an invitation. I view invitations as an opportunity to do what I want to do, instead of what someone else orders. This is where I get to experiment. As I dreaded the thought of doing just another cake, was pressed for time, and have secretly have a fascination with individual desserts which I rarely get to make, I dove into my freezer to see what I could find. Lemon cake and white cake, dark chocolate and strawberry leftover batter, and a small vat of chocolate ganache inspired my latest boozy parfaits!
Don’t judge me, but for simplicity’s and time’s sake, I used chocolate and vanilla Jell-O Pudding cups instead of the variety of mousses I had in my fantasy. I bought a can of crushed pineapple, a few bananas, a tray of raspberries, and a thing of strawberries and set to task. I already had a lot of “stuff” in my kitchen to layer in but in case you want to mimic my creations, I’ll describe each one in detail.
Pina Colada: Coconut rum with layers of white cake, coconut, pineapple, and banana.
S’mores: Chocolate liqueur with layers of chocolate cake, marshmallows, chocolate ganache, chocolate pudding, and vanilla wafers.
Strawberry Shortcake: Grand Marnier with layers of white cake, vanilla pudding, strawberries, and vanilla wafers.
Banana Split: Chocolate liqueur, strawberry chocolate marble cake, bananas, pineapple, strawberries, and vanilla pudding.
Chocolate Raspberry Bonanza: Chocolate liqueur, chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, and raspberries.
Lemon Raspberry Surprise: Raspberry liqueur, lemon cake, raspberries, and vanilla pudding.
For the life of me I can’t remember what I put in the last one but each one was topped with homemade sweet whipping cream and a maraschino cherry.
Once I had them made, I hemmed and hawed about how to transport them, knowing refrigerator space would be limited once I arrived.
Removable bases may be the most brilliant thing the party planning people ever invented in the DIY world. I snapped those suckers off and dropped the pointy end of the cups down into the ice bath in my cooler. When it was time to serve, voila! Snapped back on!
With no glass allowed near the pool, the disposable plastic cups were ideal and pretty, and the tiny spoons were perfect for these parfaits! It was fun to see the guests pass them around, sharing and their favorite flavors and trying to guess what was in them before “shooting” the stem-filled liqueurs.
