Valentine's Day is just around the corner and you've got a loved one you want to treat to something special ... but ... it lands on a Tuesday this year and you've got a big day at the office, you probably won't be back until late, and you just want to take it easy. Sound familiar? Well, then Stephanie Smith of Changing Tides Gifts in Gloucester has the perfect solution for you: Lemon Trifle.
"I am going to make the world's easiest, fastest dessert, and it's actually pretty healthy too" she says.
Smith's quick, easy trifle doesn't require any cooking, uses almost entirely premade ingredients and takes less than 10 minutes to make, but it looks and tastes great. Smith mixes low-fat, lemon-flavored yogurt and light Cool Whip together with her secret ingredient.
"The secret ingredient that I have, the only thing that's going to really dress this thing up is my lemon," says Smith. "I'm going to zest the lemon to give it a little bit more of a lemony flavor ... the nice wonderful essence of the oils comes flying out of the lemon when I use the zester, you can actually see it." This lemony flavor is enhanced even more by using lemon pound cake, rather than a plain version.
So if the secret ingredient is lemon, then the secret to making it look great is choosing the pretty glasses she serves it in. "I picked these up at a secondhand store for a dollar a piece and they're just beautiful. They're gorgeous glasses and we're going to make them look even prettier when we put this dessert in there."
Smith layers a bit of the yogurt mix, then a few squares of pound cake and then some berries several times until she has filled the glass and then finishes it off with a dollop of the yogurt, some blueberries "and a strawberry on top just to make it pretty."
Smith is also watching her calorie intake so she sticks with low-fat ingredients, but she suggests adding some sweetened condensed milk if you want something a bit creamier and sweeter.
Stephanie says she will serve her low-fat version this Valentine's Day, not just because it's beautiful and it tastes good but, as she chuckles to herself, because it also "tells your person that you absolutely love them cause you're not going to kill them with high fat. Enjoy!"
Lemon Trifle
Ingredients
2 8-ounce non-fat, lemon-flavored yogurts
1 cup light Cool Whip
1 fresh lemon
1/4 to 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk, optional
1 small lemon pound cake (Regular pound cake can be substituted)
1 cup strawberries, sliced
1 cup blueberries
Instructions
1. Pour yogurt and Cool Whip into a mixing bowl, add zest of lemon, squeeze about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice from whole lemon and fold mixture together. (Option: To make a creamier and sweeter version you can add 1/4 to 1/3 cup sweetened condensed milk.)
2. Cut pound cake into small cubes.
3. Begin layering dessert into dessert glasses or bowls by placing yogurt mixture on bottom, add pound cake pieces, strawberries, blueberries and more yogurt mixture. Repeat by adding pound cake, strawberries and blueberries and top off with more yogurt mixture. For a pleasing effect add a strawberry on top.
4. Refrigerate until use and serve slightly chilled.
• • •
Recipe courtesy of Stephanie Smith, Changing Tides Gift Shop, ACE Hardware, 2012.
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