Strawberry & Raspberry Ginger Crunch Yoghurt

Controversially, no baking was involved in this recipe. Before you take off the 'bakes' part of my name, wait for a second - this recipe includes gingernuts, which are baked (and you could make them yourself), therefore, technically it passes. Phew! This posts comes from my friend Rowan.


A few weeks ago our lovely host Roxanne dared to let me cook her dinner. After a pleasant-but-not-exciting veggie stir fry, I wanted something a little unusual for dessert. A combination of drunken Eurovision madness and stolen health-kick ideas seemed to deliver the goods, and so Roxanne asked me to tell you about it...

Strawberry & Raspberry Ginger Crunch Yoghurt

What you'll need:
* Your favourite soft berries. I used raspberries and strawberries
* A few gingernuts (or whatever ginger biscuits you like)
* Natural yoghurt - nice thick Greek yoghut is best
* A little tipple makes a great optional addition. I use dark rum

Step 1
Wash the fruit if needed and remove the tops from the strawberries. Then chop your fruit. I use the raspberries whole but split the strawberries into 2 or 4 pieces depending on the size of each berry. Tip: cutting top-to-bottom gives the most pleasing shapes; more interesting than creating little circles.


Step 2
Put all of the fruit into a large dish - wide and shallow is better. Ideally, you'll have nice ripe strawberries which are naturally sweet, however if your fruit is less-than-perfect, you may wish to add a little sugar. Then, pour over your alcohol - about half a shot of rum per person. Cover the dish and leave it for about half an hour for the fruit to absorb the sugar and rum (not for too long though or the fruit loses its bite).


Step 3
While the fruit is soaking, crush some ginger biscuits into a crumbly mixture. I recommend about 1½ biscuits per person, but it's down to your taste. Mix about three quarters of the biscuit crumb in with your natural yoghurt. Go for the thickest yoghurt you can find, which unfortunately means avoiding the ones with really low fat content, though a low-fat Greek yoghurt can work.


Step 4
Layer your fruit and yoghurt into glasses in whatever way you like. I alternated layers of strawberry, yoghurt, raspberry, yoghurt in my photos. Keep a few pieces of strawberry back though - 2 or 3 per person. Make sure your top layer is the yoghurt and ginger biscuit mix.


Step 5
Finally, top with a couple of pieces of strawberry and a sprinkle of biscuit mix. Enjoy!


Yep, that's it. This is a simple dish...

This all started with a Eurovision party when I was at university. Everyone was asked to take along food from the country which they drew in the sweepstake. I had Sweden. Great. I didn't think herring or reindeer would go down too well, and whilst I love Ikea's cafe, meatballs with lingonberry sauce didn't seem like the buffet idea we were going for either. No, I wanted a dessert. A quick Wikipedia search told me that strawberries were a popular fruit in Sweden, and that gingerbread and Pepparkaka (apparently they're like gingersnaps) were also common treats. Hence my ginger strawberry mess was conceived. I simply mixed crushed gingersnaps with whipped double cream and lots of strawberries. It looked, well, messy. But it got consumed very fast at the party, so I figured people enjoyed it!

For my more recent version, I stole my friend Kat's idea of substituting cream with yoghurt for a lighter taste and an illusion of healthiness (she does an excellent banoffee dessert using yoghurt). I also added some more fruity variety with the raspberries, and a little alcohol - what dish isn't improved by alcohol?! 


Thanks Rowan, I love the photos - will you come and take all of the photos for my blog?! This is the first of my guest posts that I have tasted, and so I can vouch for the fact it is a yummy dessert. I love the ginger with the fruit and that cheeky shot of rum! Head on over to Rowan's blog here.