A Thrifter in Disguise: Kiwi Shortcake Dessert Cups

Fast, Fun, and Family Friendly Dessert

Perfect for a St. Patrick's Day Feast

This quick and easy recipe was a total hit in my house! It got a little messy, and I had to make a few on-the-spot decisions, but these little green shortcake cups are easy (only 3 ingredients), fun (kids love 'em) and healthy (well... 1/3 of it at least). The perfect St. Patty's Day option for a family-friendly dessert.

So I have to start off by admitting that these cups weren't the original intent here.... I wanted to make a green version of these adorable Strawberry Shortcake Skewers. But my cooking/food styling skills are somewhat lacking... (no big surprise there), but I honestly didn't expect this to be tricky at all Frankly, it's a bit embarrassing at how quickly I become humbled in the kitchen ;)

What started out as a series of simple, relaxing tasks quickly turned into disaster. First, by the time I began to assemble my second skewer, the first started toppling over (it was hard to achieve the perfect balance between the weight of the fruit and a centralized placement of the skewer). Next, the whipped cream became an issue. It wasn't firm enough to withstand the weight of the rest of the ingredients, so the whole thing just started to shrink after a few minutes. Here... you can see below the beginning of the demise....

So I had to act fast and come up with another plan, since I had already prepared the other ingredients. And, thus, the Kiwi Shortcake Dessert ~~Skewers~~ Cups were born.

I started out by following the Strawberry Shortcake Skewer recipe I saw on Pinterest. I got my materials all ready...

Now, if you're a discerning and experienced dessert maker, you may realize part of my problem based on the ingredients I used. Yes? No? Well, I can't be entirely sure, but think it was the ready-made whipped cream. I just don't think it was thick enough to support everything else. Perhaps Cool Whip would have been better, or I could have made my own (but I was actively trying to avoid that!) Either way, they didn't come out looking as pretty as they could have, but they still tasted REALLY good.

I began to cut the biscuits into shape... I think I got a smaller biscuit container than was originally intended, so depending on how many you want to make, you might want to grab a bigger one. My package yielded about 27 (pretty thin) 2" biscuits.

Soooooo I didn't have a circle-shaped cookie-cutter either, and after scrounging through all the cabinets, I settled on using the top of my glass water bottle. It was tricky because it was hard to get a clean edge, but I was making it work... and then my husband came down and asked me what I was doing, and wouldn't a metal measuring cup be a better choice? Ugh. A bit annoying that he came up with that option in a few seconds... hmm... maybe that's really where this project started to go wrong... JK of course. It WAS a much better idea.

The girls were even able to help with this step! After they were all cut, I baked them at 400° for about 4 minutes and let them cool on a cooling rack (sorry, forgot the pics of those).

So by this point, I had all the ingredients prepared and the skewers were ready to assemble. And I started to assemble... and soon realized it just wasn't going to work. So I grabbed by trusty plastic serving cups (yup, the same ones from this post and this post), and began to layer away.

Using the cups was a lot more forgiving. They inevitably started to topple, too, but that was okay, because there was an edge there to catch them. They offered A LOT more room for error, which is what someone like me definitely needs with this kind of task.

I'm sure you can grasp from the pics how incredibly easy these are to put together, but I'll give you the quick run-down of all my steps below.

Kiwi Shortcake Dessert Cups

Ingredients:

1 Package/Can Biscuit Dough
5-7 Kiwis, each cut into 4 slices
Whipped Cream: again, I used the can, but you may be better off with a firmer variety
Serving Cups: I had these at home because I use them frequently--you can buy a big bag at Party City (I can't find them online, but they're called 5 oz. Plastic Cups and came in a bag of 88)

To Make:

Roll out biscuit dough and cut into ~2" smaller biscuits.
Bake biscuits at 400 ° for about 4 minutes (watch them, though, my oven tends to take a little longer).
Cut each kiwi into 4 slices
Begin layering into cups: here was my pattern--> whipped cream, kiwi, whipped cream, biscuit, kiwi, biscuit, whipped cream. But I don't think you can really go wrong with the order.
Enjoy right away! These are definitely not a make-ahead dessert due to potential whipped-cream deterioration ;)

In the mood for more St. Patty's Day preparations? Check out this super-simple tutorial for Shamrock Chair Sashes--a cheap and easy way to liven up your table decor!