This Diwali, east meets west i.e. shrikhand meets Parfait. I am a big shrikhand fan but it has to be home made. My grandmother makes the best shrikhand. It’s not extremely sweet or heavy like the shrikhand you get in stores. I am a parfait fan too; especially the strawberry parfait. When I saw fresh cranberries at the grocery store, shrikhand parfait was the first thought to cross my mind. I bought lot of them and put them in the freezer for next dessert.

You can also use blueberries and raspberries for this dessert. Berries are not only rich in antioxidants, but are low in calories and yummy too. I wanted to cut the sour taste of cranberries with the sweetness of strawberries and black currant. I used fresh strawberries and black currant juice for the berry compote.

For the shrikhand part, you can either use hung yogurt or use the Greek yogurt which is ready to use. I used my grandma’s method and hung fresh yogurt in muslin cloth for 5-6 hours to let all the water drain. But the Greek yogurt works equally well if you want a quick dessert. Sugar and lime juice in this recipe depend on the taste of berries. Since I was using black currant juice and the strawberries were sweeter, I used less sugar. You can store the extra compote in refrigerator and add it to yogurt and make a quick dessert.

This time I gave a miss to the cocoa powder for dusting and used my favorite memory boosting spice – Cinnamon to add the nutty flavor to the fresh cream. You can layer it in shot glasses, square glasses, or any other way you want. Make sure to chill it for at least 2 hours before eating or serving.

Ingredients

Serves 2

For Shrikhand

• 2/3 cup hung yogurt or Greek yogurt
• 1 ½ tbsp. Icing sugar or powdered sugar
• 1 tsp Vanilla essence

For Berries Compote

• ½ cup chopped strawberries
• ½ cup cranberries
• ¼ cup blackcurrant juice (I used Ribena)
• 2 tbsp sugar (if the berries are very sour add 1 more tbsp. sugar)

Garnish

• 1 tbsp finely chopped strawberries
• Whipped cream (appx 4 tbsp)
• ½ tsp cinnamon powder

Recipe

Whip together the shrikhand ingredients till you get a smooth and creamy mixture (approximately 2 minutes) and chill for 1 hour.

Put all the Compote ingredients in a pan and let in boil on low flame till you get a thick sauce like consistency (approximately 12-15 minutes should be good enough). Keep stirring in between. Let it cool completely.

Now layer the dessert glass with alternate layers of compote and shrikhand, start with a layer of compote and end with a layer of shrikhand. Top with a layer of chopped strawberries and pipe or spoon some whipped cream and dust it with cinnamon powder.

Chill for at least two hours before serving.

If you are using the ready to pipe whipped cream, you can add the whipped cream just before serving.