Par­faits orig­i­nat­ed in France and it trans­lates to “per­fect”. That on­ly seems fit­ting, since that’s ex­act­ly what this dessert is: per­fec­tion in a glass. These lay­ers of plump, soft berries, whipped cream and crunchy streusel are easy to as­sem­ble and sat­is­fy all your sweet crav­ings.

Sim­i­lar to mar­i­nat­ing, mac­er­at­ing is the sim­ple process of soak­ing fruit in liq­uid and sug­ar to soft­en it and re­lease its juices. Fruit can be mac­er­at­ed in liq­uids rang­ing from spicy, dark liquors to tart juice, vine­gar, cit­rus juice, or strong wine. You can play around with it as each liq­uid will lend dif­fer­ent flavours to your mac­er­at­ed fruit par­fait.

Serves 4

IN­GRE­DI­ENTS

For the mac­er­at­ed fruit

2 cups straw­ber­ries, trimmed and quar­tered

1 pint blue­ber­ries

1/4 cup gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar

1 lemon, zest of whole and juice of half

1/2 cup brandy, triple sec or rum

For the whipped cream

1 1/2 cups An­chor Heavy Whip­ping Cream

1/4 cup con­fec­tion­er sug­ar

1/2 tea­spoon vanil­la

1/4 cup fresh mint, fine­ly chopped, plus more for gar­nish

For the streusel

1/3 cup all-pur­pose flour

1/2 cup di­ges­tive crack­er crumbs

1/4 cup gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar

1/2 tea­spoon kosher salt

1/8 tea­spoon cin­na­mon

6 ta­ble­spoons An­chor Un­salt­ed But­ter, melt­ed

DI­REC­TIONS

1 Mac­er­ate the berries: In a large bowl com­bine the gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar, lemon zest, lemon juice and al­co­hol. Stir well. Add the berries and gen­tly toss to com­bine. Taste and ad­just for sweet­ness and brandy if need­ed. Cov­er and re­frig­er­ate for at least 1 hour or up to overnight, stir­ring oc­ca­sion­al­ly.

2 Make the streusel: Line a bak­ing sheet with parch­ment pa­per and pre­heat oven to 325˚. In a bowl com­bine flour, di­ges­tive crumbs, sug­ar, salt and cin­na­mon.

3 Mix and add in melt­ed but­ter. Use a fork to mix un­til clumps form. Trans­fer streusel to bak­ing sheet in a sin­gle lay­er and bake for about 7 min­utes. Re­move from oven and stir. Re­turn to oven and con­tin­ue to bake for 6-8 ad­di­tion­al min­utes, or un­til streusel is pale brown, watch­ing close­ly to pre­vent burn­ing. Re­move from oven and al­low to cool on the pan.

4 In the bowl of a stand mix­er fit­ted with the whisk at­tach­ment, add the heavy whip­ping cream, ic­ing sug­ar and vanil­la. Beat on high speed un­til thick­ened, about 1-2 min­utes. Fold in the mint.

5 Al­ter­nate­ly, you can whip the cream us­ing a kitchen whisk un­til thick­ened. It will def­i­nite­ly re­quire some el­bow grease!

6 To as­sem­ble: Lay­er a 1/4 cup of cream in the bot­tom of each glass, top with a fourth of the berries and spoon­ful of the brandy mari­nade.

7 Top each with a 1/4 cup of the streusel. Gar­nish with fresh mint leaves. Re­frig­er­ate un­til ready to serve.

Recipe by Stephanie Teekaram,

chef at the Acad­e­my of Bak­ing

and Pas­try Arts.