Incredibly easy dessert alert! These gorgeous dessert shots pretty much make themselves, and are the perfect way to finish a dinner party. Because who doesn’t love mini desserts? Have one (or three) of each!
I’ve got two flavours for you today. If you want something a little sweeter, then raspberry lemonade is right up your street. And if you’re in the market for something a little tart, then you are going to go crazy for lime and ginger. Everyone’s a winner.
The recipe below is going to make three of each flavour, giving you six in total. But feel free to scale up or down depending on how many dinner guests you have (or how many you want left over for breakfast tomorrow).
There are three layers to both flavours. It all starts off with some cookie crumbs, shortbread for the raspberry shots or ginger biscuits for the lime ones. Feel free to make your own cookies, but I just went for some shop-bought ones. Grab a bowl, pop the cookies in, and then mash them up into crumbs with a fork. You don’t need to crumbs to be super fine – leave a few slightly bigger bits in there too for a bit more texture.
Of course, you can swap out the cookies for any flavour you like – lemon shortbread would be perfect here, and let’s not forget the trusty digestive biscuit (or graham crackers if you’re that side of the pond).
Next up we’ve got some curd. I shared with you my recipe for pink lemonade curd earlier in the week, and that’s the basis for the raspberry lemonade ones. Making your own curd is a lot easier than you might think, and I definitely encourage you to give it a go. But if you’re looking for a super quick dessert to throw together in 10 minutes, then there is no shame in picking up a jar of curd at the supermarket. You’re not going to find pink lemonade curd in your local Asda, but swap it out for regular lemon curd and it will be just as tasty.
Well, almost.
And if you want to make your own lime curd, I’ve got you covered too. Although you will definitely have more luck picking up a store-bought jar of that – both Sainsbury’s and Tesco should have it.
The third and final layer in both of these dessert shots is some fresh whipped vanilla cream. Skip the canned stuff, and whip some double or heavy cream up to almost stiff peaks, with some vanilla and powdered sugar. The sugar makes it much quicker to whip, so you can probably even do it by hand with a balloon whisk.
Top the pink lemonade dessert shots with a fresh (or frozen) raspberry, and sprinkle the lime ginger ones with some crushed up meringue pieces. Again, I bought some pre-made meringue kisses from the supermarket, but you can either make your own, or pick up some of those little meringue pieces from the baking aisle that are just perfect for sprinkling on top of desserts.
You’re definitely going to want to make sure you use the perfect glasses for these desserts – you don’t want to ruin things by chucking them in any old souvenir shot glass from your weekend in Amsterdam. The recipe below is perfect for 60ml (2 ounce) shot glasses, and I bought these ones from Amazon especially for the job. I hope you’ll agree that they look incredible layered up with all sorts of yumminess – definitely worth the purchase!
- 300ml (1¼ cups) double or heavy cream
- 4 tablespoons icing sugar (powdered sugar)
- 1 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 shortbread cookies
- 120ml (½ cup) pink lemonade curd
- 3 fresh or frozen raspberries
- 2 ginger cookies
- 120ml (½ cup) lime curd
- Meringue pieces
- Firstly, make the vanilla cream. Pour the cream into a medium sized bowl, and add the sifted icing sugar and vanilla extract. Whip the cream to almost stiff peaks, and then set aside.
- For the raspberry lemon desserts, crush up the shortbread cookies into large crumbs using a fork. Put one teaspoon of the crumbs into the bottom of three 60ml (2oz) shot glasses. Put a couple of teaspoons of the pink lemonade curd on top of the cookie crumbs, and then either spoon or pipe some vanilla cream on top, until the shot glasses are half-filled. Repeat the process with more crumbs, curd, and vanilla cream. Top with a fresh or frozen raspberry, and serve.
- For the lime ginger desserts, repeat the above process using ginger cookie crumbs, lime curd, and vanilla cream. Top with small pieces of broken meringue, and serve.
- These adorable desserts are best served immediately, as otherwise the cookie crumbs will lose their crunch. The curd can be made two or three weeks ahead of time, and then the desserts are easily assembled when needed.
You look incredible all layered up 😛
You’re a curd stan x