Fruit Salad in a Basket with Homemade Vanilla Whipped Cream and Berrylicious Sauce

Fruit Salad in a Basket with Homemade Vanilla Whipped Cream and Berry Sauce-Creole Contessa

This is a welcome to summertime dessert. Fresh organic berries, homemade whipped cream and topped off with a nice berrylicious sauce.

I am part of the salad bar monthly club and this weeks theme is berries. Well, I love berries so this was exciting to create something really tasty using my favorite berries.

My Fruit Salad in a basket is the perfect quick dessert!

I started off with some nice fresh, organic blueberries.

And don’t forget my favorite berry of them all, strawberries.

I washed, drained, and spinned my berries. Then I cored the strawberries and sliced them into four pieces.

Place all the berries in a bowl and top with confectioners sugar, lemon zest and juice, and vanilla.

After the berries macerate for about 30 minutes, strain the berries, reserve the juice and cook the reserved juice in a pot turning it into a nice thick sauce.

I basted the puff pastry tops with butter and cinnamon sugar and baked for about 17 minutes. Remove the top off the puff pastry and sprinkle more cinnamon sugar inside.

Fill the cavity of the puff pastry with a lot of berries. Top with whipped cream and garnish with mint.

You can also add any extra fruit around the pastry. Believe me, you will want more fruit than can fit inside the pastry cavity.

I garnished the plate with the berrylicious sauce so it wouldn’t soften the puff pastry. It’s best to garnish with sauce right before you’re ready to serve the dish, to prevent this from happening.

Yes, people, 1,000 pictures later, lol…it’s finally time to EAT!

Fruit Salad in a Basket with Homemade Vanilla Whipped Cream and Berry Sauce

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 6

Ingredients:

16 oz. strawberries, cored, cut into 4 pieces

1 small container of blueberries

1 package of puff pastry 6 count

3 tablespoon granulated sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

4 tablespoon Butter, melted

1 lemon, juice, zest

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup confectioners sugar

vanilla whipped cream (recipe below)

berrylicious glaze (recipe below)

Mint to garnish

For the Vanilla Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy cream

¼ cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For Berrylicious Glaze
reserved berry juice

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Rinse, drain and core strawberries. Rinse blueberries. Cut strawberries into four pieces. Place blueberries and strawberries into a large bowl.

Add lemon zest and juice, confectioners sugar and vanilla. Mix well and set aside for about 30 minutes.

Drain berries in a strainer and reserve juice to make berrylicious glaze.

Add reserved juice from berries to a small pot. Bring juice up to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes for sauce to thicken.

Mix cinnamon and granulated sugar in a small bowl and set aside.

Place puff pastry squares on sprayed cookie sheet. Baste with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. Bake for 15-20 minutes, are until golden brown.

Prepare Vanilla Whipped Cream by placing mixing bowl and blades in freezer for about 30 minutes to get ice cold. Remove from freezer, add heavy cream and sugar to mixing bowl.

Beat on medium high speed until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla and beat about 1 minute more.

Remove top of puff pastry. Sprinkle more cinnamon sugar into puff pastry cavity. Fill with berries, top with whipped cream and garnish with mint.

Drizzle berrylicious glaze onto pastry right before serving.