Tasty Tuesday - Strawberry Shortcake Parfait

For the past few days, I've been visiting with my family in WI. Yesterday we enjoyed Easter dinner complete with this new dessert recipe that I threw together. Since I firmly believe that "secret recipes" are totally lame and, in all honesty, a pretty arrogant way of raising yourself to a level you don't deserve, I will share it with you, because...well....this dessert was pretty darn good. And of course, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't share it.

The idea for the Strawberry Shortcake Parfait came from this super easy and DELICIOUS recipe that I made last summer. Ok, so the rough measurements for your ingredients are:

1 angel food cake, baked and cooled
2-4 lbs stawberries, each strawberry cut into fourths
1-2 tubs of cool whip
2 small packages of vanilla instant pudding

I realize those measurements are absolutely non-standard, but that's because I have no idea what size bowl, dish, cups, etc. you will be putting this in. I personally LOVE to make little individual desserts in glasses, but wasn't able to do that yesterday, so mine was made in this "vase":

When you make this dessert depends on how soggy you mind your angel food cake being. I made it a day in advance and it was, ehhh, pretty soggy. But delicious. I think I would have liked it better if I had made it JUST before eating time, but oh well.

Tip #1: If you want juicier strawberries, cut them up, put them in a bowl, and throw about 1/2 cup of sugar on top. Let sit for 30 minutes or more before layering.

Tip #2: Make sure you're READY to layer once you starting mixing the pudding. You'll have to whisk it for 2 minutes and as soon as you're done, it starts to set. So be sure you're ready when you get to that step.

Alright, so break your angel food cake into 1-inchish size pieces. Then layer your food in the following order:

1. Angel food pieces
2. Pudding
3. Strawberries
4. Cool whip

I layered this twice in the "vase" I was using, but again, how you do it will depend on what you're using. Obviously you'd probably not layer those things more than once for individual cups.

Garnish the top with a few leftover strawberries and you're set! Yummmm!

(The relatively ugly, half eaten-version of Strawberry Shortcake Parfait is below.)

(Sorry.)