How to Make Dessert Shooters

I’ve been doing No-S as a diet lately. If I’ve never mentioned it before, it’s quite simple. No Sweets, No Snacks and No Seconds, except (sometimes) on days beginning with S. It’s less of a quick weight loss scheme and more of a way to regulate eating. While I’m not overindulging, I’m certainly eating enough!

But, being an S-day, I wanted a treat. While a huge sweet would be perfectly legal, I like the idea of moderating treats. You know, like they say the French do. (Wonderful food, but small, delicious portions).

So, one of the things I’m doing for treats is making them deliciously special, but small.

	Small is definitely the point here. This is a mini martini glass.   It holds about two ounces, so you’re talking about something the size of a shot glass.  In fact, shot glasses make superb glasses for dessert shooters.  (Hey!  Maybe that’s where the name came from.  Hint:  Yes.  It did.)I bought these glasses because I love a dirty martini or an appletini, but frankly, those 8 oz. cocktail glasses I have are just too big for what is essentially a drink that’s pure alcohol.  (Trivia fact: Cocktail glasses used to be about 4oz.   They’ve gotten bigger!)But not only are they good for enjoying alcohol in moderate amounts, they’re good for enjoying desserts in the same way.
The principle behind a satisfying dessert shooter is to layer tastes and textures.  The base layer should be fairly firm.  Think cake, cookies, or anything sweet that retains a reasonably firm texture.This particular shooter has small cubes of pound cake I had left over from the pound cake.But in building your shooter, you don’t have to choose something neutral like vanilla pound cake.  You can pick something strongly-flavored like gingerbread, dark chocolate cake or anything that has a firm texture and a distinct taste.
	Remember, principle is to contrast flavor and texture.  So if you choose a neutral base layer, you should be choosing something with a stronger, more distinct flavor.  If you chose a strong flavor for the base layer, choose a milder flavor for the secondary layer.In either case, you also want to contrast not only the flavor, but the texture.  The base layer should have a firmer texture, so the secondary layer should be something smoother or creamier.  Think ice cream, pudding or something along those lines.This particular shooter is using mint oreo ice cream.
After you add the secondary layer, you can use a tertiary layer of some other flavor. In this case, I didn’t but repeated the pound cake/ice cream theme.
	The final layer can be another flavor if you wish.  In this case, hot fudge, which gave not only a flavor and texture contrast, but a temperature one, too!This is also a good time to use a garnish, if you want.  Say a berry or two, or maybe a sprig of mint. My grocery store didn’t have any.  Hey, I live in rural New Hampshire and it’s February in a snowstorm.  What the devil do you expect?

These were a big hit at my house this evening! Everyone in my family loves tasty things, and this was an amazingly easy treat that looks impressive and tastes wonderful. You could make up a bunch of these for parties. Because they’re so quick and simple, you could even serve several different sorts to suit several tastes.