Summer is in full swing, and with it the time of sweet, fragrant and bright red strawberries. When tropical temperatures prevail outside, few of us feel like spending a free afternoon in front of a hot oven baking complex desserts. But that doesn’t mean you have to give up a sweet spot with your afternoon iced coffee! This lightning-fast recipe from our readers for a no-bake strawberry dessert with flavored cottage cheese and baby sponge cakes in a glass is an absolute hit of the summer season. It’s light, refreshing, ready in a few minutes and looks incredibly elegant on the table.
The genius of this glass dessert lies in its absolute simplicity and perfect harmony of texture. The base is a velvety soft cream made from honest quark scented with vanilla, which is complemented by layers of crispy baby sponge cakes and fresh strawberries. After cutting, the juicy fruit naturally begins to release its precious sweet and sour juice, which flows down and instantly softens the dry sponge cakes. During a short rest in the cold, the sponge cakes turn into a soft cake body and you get
a luxurious cup that puts even the most expensive desserts from pastry shops in your pocket. Let’s do it!
- Fresh strawberries (300–400 g, sweet, washed and cut into slices or cubes)
- Soft cottage cheese (500 g – ideally full-fat in a tub for maximum softness)
- Sour cream or whipping cream (1 cup / approx. 150–200 g to soften the cottage cheese base)
- Vanilla sugar (2 sachets for a captivating cream aroma)
- Powdered sugar (to taste, fine-tuning the sweetness of the cream)
- Children’s round biscuits (1 pack – traditional wheat)
- Fresh mint or lemon balm (a few leaves for final festive decoration)
Preparation procedure:
1) Whipping the velvety vanilla cream
Pour two packages of soft cottage cheese into a deep clean bowl and add a cup of good sour cream (or liquid whipping cream). Add two bags of fragrant vanilla sugar to the milk base and two tablespoons of powdered sugar to taste. Take an electric hand mixer or a regular kitchen whisk and mix the ingredients thoroughly.
Whip until beautifully smooth, light and velvety, with no relevant lumps. Taste the cream and add a little more sweetener if necessary.
2) Preparing fresh fruit
Wash the sweet summer strawberries carefully under cold running water, remove the stems, clean them and dry them with a paper towel. Set aside a few of the prettiest whole strawberries for the final decoration of the cups. Cut the remaining strawberries with a sharp knife into thin, neat slices or small cubes, which will release the most sweet juices in the dessert.
