Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Strawberry Mason Jar Trifle




Strawberry Mason Jar Trifle

In an attempt to make something delicious to take over to a friend's dinner [Lovely Sam and Nehal Desai] AND not break my calorie budget, I decided to make something with fruit.  I actually found sweet, fresh strawberries at Kroger!  In January!  Whoa!  [Thanks to Mexico or Peru, I'm sure.] 

 

As you might know, I am trying to get rid of this baby weight that has been hanging on for about a year now.  You can check out my other blog, I'm Gonna be a Looser...Today!

I actually didn't work off of a recipe for this one.  I pretty much winged it.  Luckily, it turned out delish!

Here is what you will need for the recipe:

1 Bucket Cool Whip, Lite
2 Small boxes of White Chocolate Pudding
4 Cups Fat Free Milk
2 Pints of Strawberries
1 TBSP Sugar
1 Prepared Angel Food Cake (cut into 8 wedges)
1 White Chocolate bar (shaved)
8 Pint sized Mason Jars

Basically you just need to chop, mix, and assemble.  Pretty easy!

First, we need to get the strawberries macerating. Macerating.  Scary.  Word.  I don't like scary words, but there is no other way to describe this.  Macerating means to break a food down by using a liquid [Thank you Mr. Webster].  In this case, we slice the strawberries and add a little sugar.  The sugar ends up bringing out the liquid in the strawberries and works to break it down.  It basically makes a sweet yummy sauce for the strawberries to bath in [lucky little berries].

I like to slice my strawberries so you get a cross-section of each strawberry.  Mom did it this way, so that's how I do it too :)

Rinse
 
Remove leaves
 
Slice off the top [feed to lucky dog, Chobee]
 
Slice away!

After you have finished slicing, just sprinkle the sugar over the top of the strawberries and stir.  Then cover with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge to chill out for a few hours. 

Now, let's get the pudding going.  I just put the pudding powder in a bowl, poured the cold milk in, and then whisked away for about a minute.  Then pop it in the fridge to hang with the strawberries.  This helps set up the pudding. 

 

Ready to chill

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE instant pudding.  Have you ever tried to make a pudding from scratch?  Well, don't waste your time!!!!  OMG.  It took forever, and it didn't taste ANY better than regular old boxed instant pudding.  Ok, I'm better.

The pudding only takes about 5 minutes in the fridge to firm up enough for the trifles.  [Have I said I love instant pudding?]

Now, just cut the cake into 8 wedges.  I cut it in half, and then in half again to make 4 wedges.  Then I cut each wedge in half to make 8.


Now let's shave the white chocolate.  It's not as scary as it sounds...no razors or loss of digits were involved.  I just used a vegetable peeler and run it down the end of the bar.


Now it's time to assemble!!! 

It would be best to set up a work station with the jars on one end, then strawberries, then pudding, then coolwhip, then the white chocolate.  Welllll, I didn't do that.  My work station was all crazy of course!

Add to the jar in this order:
1 - Half of one wedge of cake, crumbled up
2 - 2 TBSP Strawberries
3 - 1/4 cup of pudding
4 - 1 heaping TBSP of Cool Whip

 
 

REPEAT

Then top with the shaved white chocolate.


Screw on lid.



Ta-da!!!!

These end up being only 250 calories for a whole jar!  Yum!! 

I am very happy with this recipe, and I think it turned out to be what I was going for.

I would say, definitely a make again recipe.  I hope you make it!!  Let me know if you do, I would love to hear about it!

Now I'm ready for spring and lots of fresh berries!!

BTW - Here is my little berry monster.  She LOVES berries!