Strawberry Vanilla Mousse Parfaits

For a long time I wanted to make pretty parfaits. I make trifles all the time, but they're bigger. I wanted to make parfaits! So when we recently picked strawberries, it was perfect! So! First I made Strawberry Cinnamon Bread. Here's the recipe for that, which came from allrecipes.com (Woo!)

2 cups fresh strawberries

3 1/8 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups white sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cups vegetable oil

4 eggs, beaten

1 1/4 cups chopped pecans

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter and flour two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.
2. Slice strawberries, and place in medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle lightly with sugar, and set aside while preparing bread mixture.
3. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in large bowl: mix well. Blend oil and eggs into strawberries. Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. Stir in pecans. Divide batter into pans.
4. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until tester inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn loaves out, and cool completely.

Then I cut that into little cubes. (It was very easy to cut and made very nice little cubes that didn't crumble!) and I mixed up the Vanilla Mousse, which is actually just a small box of "Jello" vanilla pudding, about 3 tablespoons of "Maxwell House International cafe' French Vanilla drink mix powder" (Pictured), and about 2 cups of Cool Whip. So it's not exactly super official Mousse, but it's a little more than just pudding ;-)

Then I cut up the strawberries into little chunks and layered away! It was fun!! Then while I let them chill in the fridge for a few minutes, I made little chocolate garnishes to put on top of them with a bit of Cool Whip! Here's how they looked when I finished them :D

 That chocolate splatter was supposed to be a star, but I like it better as a splatter.

This is my customized Chelsea topper :-) (I had to make sure I got one somehow, haha) Notice the Carrot behind my name ;-)

These were sooo fun, I hope you try it sometime!

By the way: I never explained how I made the garnishes. All I did was melt some chocolate wafers in icing bags and then piped them onto wax paper, set them in the freezer for about 3 or 4 minutes, and they were ready to top with! Enjoy!

Linking up with Sweet as Sugar Cookies

Thanks for the invitation, Lisa.

Til' Later,

Chelsea (Carrot)