Last weekend our friends invited us over for dinner, so I offered to bring dessert. The Pilot wanted chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, let’s just say I am terrible at making cakes from scratch; Little secret: I always use box mix whenever I need to make a cake or cupcakes. See I am human too! I LOVE box mixes, I am always happy when I go to a birthday party and the host made cupcakes from a box. Can’t go wrong with yellow cake and classic chocolate!

Anyway, this time around I was challenged by my husband to make the cupcakes from scratch… Challenge accepted and I had a box mix handy just in case anything went wrong. I ended up going with the Barefoot Contessa’s chocolate cupcakes and peanut butter icing recipe. They came out awesome! My only dilemma was I ended up with 17 cupcakes and enough frosting for 13; I always tend to over frost. I know, terrible right?! I decided to save the extra unfrosted cupcakes for later use, by wrapping them up and storing them in the freezer.

Saturday night came around and after dinner, like always the Pilot asked “what’s for dessert?” All I thought was CUPCAKE REMIX! I had pulled the cupcakes out of the freezer in the morning, because like always after  every weekend dinner the Pilot asks “what’s for dessert”, this time I was prepared. I pulled the wrappers off 2 of the cupcakes and popped them in the microwave for 20 seconds, just until warm. I had strawberries in the fridge along with heavy whipping cream to make whipped cream. Hmmm what could I use to kick the whipped cream up a notch? We had peanut butter frosting the weekend before and I didn’t want to be a one trick pony. So I searched the pantry and there it was, a gigantic jar of hazelnut spread! So I took a risk and combined the heavy  whipping cream and hazelnut spread. The result was FABULOUS, so fabulous we probably could have just ate that alone or with some fruit. But who am I kidding, we were already committed to the chocolate cake ingredient. Next I found a vessel to layer up the ingredients and voila! Dessert from leftover cupcakes.

Chocolate Hazelnut Parfait
Serves 2

2       cups chocolate cake crumbles, store-bought, homemade (scratch or box mix)
1/2    cup heavy whipping cream
4       tablespoons hazelnut spread
4       strawberries, sliced or chopped
equipment: 2 short glasses or mason jars (8oz) or whatever you have on hand

Heat up cake crumbles in the microwave safe plate until warm (about 20 seconds). Put heavy whipping cream and hazelnut spread in a bowl of a stand mixer, using the whisk attachment. Whisk on medium-high speed until the cream thickens around 3-5 minutes.

To assembly, put a spoonful of the hazelnut cream in the bottom of each glass/mason jar, followed by half the cake crumbles, half of the cream, a layer of strawberries, the rest of the cream then cake crumbles. Top off with strawberries. Enjoy!