Heaven in a shot glass

Around Valentine's Day this past February, our church had a "Love Boat" themed evening for couples that was tons of fun.  Big Daddy and I volunteered to help with the "Lido Deck" aka the FOOD - yummy!

 Here we are, all dressed up in our chef coats, ready to serve the couples in attendance.

And here's a cheesy Valentines pic.  :-)

Anyway, the my very favorite thing we served that night were tiny servings of red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting in a shot glass.  I made a huge batch of cream cheese frosting and someone else made the red velvet cake. We assembled the individual glasses by crumbling the cake into smaller chunks and then alternating layers of cake/ frosting/ cake/ frosting and then topping it all off with a little whipped cream.  They were gone in a split second!  In fact, we had to kind of ration them because we had three groups to feed and the first group had a TON of them.

It occurred to me that LOTS of things might go over well in these small shot glasses.  The presentation is fun and even those who are watching what they eat tend to indulge in one of these fun desserts because you automatically have one of the most important factors in eating well - portion control!  (Well, unless you grab more than one - ha!)

So when I was asked to make some desserts for Teacher Appreciation Day at ML's school, I immediately thought of those shot glass desserts.

At first I wanted to make Key Lime Pies, but as usual, I found myself in the grocery store the day before they were needed, with no time to look up and experiment with a new recipe for Key Lime filling.  Turns out they don't make ready to go key lime filling, so it was time to get creative.

I decided to do 2 different types:  Cookies and Cream (oreo)

and

Cheesecake

They were easy as....... pie.  Ha!  

Cheesecake was easiest, as all I had to do was pour the graham crackers into the bottom of the glasses and then pipe the (already mixed) cheesecake filling on top.  I spoon the filling into a zip lock bag and then cut off the tip to make filling the glasses easier.

The Cookies and Cream took a little more work, but not much.  I had to mix up cookies and cream pudding and let it set.  Meanwhile I crushed half a package of Oreos and then put the crumbles in the bottom of the cups.  Once the pudding was set, I used another zip lock to pipe it into the glasses and then finished them off by adding another layer of cookie crumbles.  

Easy as can be!

They turned out great!  I don't have a picture of one with the whipped cream on top, but I'll add one as soon as I can!

Making the desserts was very therapeutic for me.  It's been one crazy week.  Monday evening I had to go to visitation for some dear friends who lost their brother unexpectedly and I took these pictures while I waited for Big Daddy to meet us at JR's baseball practice.

Mourning, praying, hurting for my friends always makes me wish heaven and earth weren't so far apart.  Reminds me that this is not my home.  Makes me appreciate the little things in this life:

 Like flowers from a precious girl - picked from a baseball practice field.

Here's to life's sweet moments.