Berry Patriotic Shortcake

I previously shared this recipe over at Our Thrifty Ideas. In case you didn’t get to see it I thought I would share it here. This dessert is perfect for the any time, but especially the 4th of July. It is super yummy and perfect to make for the summer time.
I am so excited to be sharing this simple recipe with all of you! Strawberry Shortcake is a favorite dessert of mine so I decided to kick this simple idea up a notch to make a yummy dessert for a 4th of July Barbecue.

Ingredients:

Fresh Berries,
Angel Food Cake
Puff Pastry
Cool Whip
Sugar

For some reason I didn’t take a picture of the Angel Food Cake – but you could use any angel food cake or sponge cake. For the Puff Pastry I used the Frozen Puff Pastry by Pepperidge Farm – it is very easy to use. Choose some yummy looking fresh berries. This time I used Strawberries, Raspberries and Blackberries. You could use blueberries as well but my kids do not care for blueberries.

Wash your berries and separate them into 3 bowls. For the strawberries you will need to cut off the top and cut them in half or quarters.

Don’t these look so yummy! The smallest bowl I only have raspberries and black berries – they are for decorating so you don’t need a ton. Set the small bowl aside until you are ready to put together your shortcake.

To the other two bowls ad 1 Tbsp. sugar. Then with a potato masher begin to mash the berries together. One of the bowls I leave really chunky and the other I mash everything really good so there is a lot of juice.

Take the two bowls and mix them together. This will give you a nice berry sauce to put on your patriotic shortcake or any other yummy desserts and not much sugar has been added! Put the berry mixture in the fridge until you are read to pull everything together.

Since I will be serving this at our 4th of July Barbecue I want to have some stars. I thought this would help make it super patriotic! Shapes are so easy to make with puff pastry. Read and follow the instructions on your box.

Basically you need to pull out the pastry and set on your counter to defrost. This takes about 40 minutes. Once it is defrosted you can unfold the pastry and begin cutting out your stars with a star cookie cutter.

Place the stars on a cookie sheet and brush with an egg wash (1 egg with 1 Tbsp. of water). Then sprinkle with sugar and bake according to the directions on the box. Mine baked at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.