Easy Mixed Berry Walnut Verrines – Prettiest Desserts for Summer

This Easy Refreshing Mixed Berry Walnut Verrines recipe is the perfect, light, layered dessert for summer! Beautifully satisfying and quick to make, these light, refreshing, summery verrines might be something you’ll want to make on repeat. With the biscuit walnut layer with loads of walnuts adding interesting texture and deliciousness to every bite, make sure you pick your best glasses because creating and seeing the layers is half the magic to a good verrine.

I absolutely love desserts in glasses and these Mixed Berry Verrines and a few other desserts above use the same stemless martini glasses from Devnow, glassware that doubles up as perfect dessert glasses. At the risk of repeating myself, a good verrine needs good glassware, and I am extremely lucky to have a really nice collection. I’ve been collecting or rather hoarding glassware forever and I cannot resist picking up something I like.

My collection has been made better thanks to the large hearted folk at my favourite brand Devnow who have spoilt me over the years, showering me with glassware and serve ware over the years. That continues to date. It’s probably safe to say that a load of my desserts and recipes are inspired just looking at their products, the joy they bring me. You can find some more of my creations here.

My love for creating desserts is well known as well as my love for plating, styling and shooting them. With inputs from my son over the past few years, he who has good taste, a very advanced palette, someone who shares my aesthetics, I truly enjoy this space. For me, food has always been a visual experience. Simply said, what I create must taste as good as it looks. I live season to season, ingredient to ingredient, drawing inspiration from everywhere.

These Mixed Berry Walnut Verrines happened because the son just came back from the UK, traveling solo across the absolutely stunning Shetland Islands, returned with the freshest of summer berries my better half sent. I was racing against time because it’s been really really hot this summer, temperatures reaching 45-46 C and all I could think about was berries – raspberries, blueberries, strawberries. The first thing I did was grab some and make a quick, simple dessert sauce which is the best way to extend their life, in addition of course to freezing or a making preserves. The dessert sauce was too delicious, deeply flavoured by the seasons sweetest produce. A quick search on my blog for inspiration and I knew just what to make – VERRINES!

At the same time, my sweet friends at California Walnuts India sent me a batch of the freshest, sweetest walnuts and the wheels began to turn in my head. Walnuts and pistachios are one of my favourite dry fruits to use in dessert, so walnuts were certainly going into my biscuit layer. However, this time I used an almost equal quantity of walnuts to biscuits and quite surprisingly, they added even better texture than my normal biscuit layer. Definitely healthier, much tastier, and definitely how I’ll make desserts in the future since nuts makes everything so much better!

I had almost forgotten the magic of verrines, a dessert I used to make so often in the years before Instagram. This French dessert was also always a great way to use any leftover ingredients while making a cake for example and an ingenious way to create something out of almost nothing. I have done this forever.

Over the years, each time I created a dessert, I would quickly use up all the remaining components or leftovers to create a sub dessert of sorts, a quick dessert in a wine glass or goblet that would offer the same flavours, avoiding wastage. Needless to say, these little sub desserts of sorts were always greedily devoured, like a precursor to what was coming. The only thing I completely forgot was these were called Verrines!

I now remember making Tropical Fruit Verrines & Lebkuchen Cream & Genoise Verrines with an apple craisin compote way back in 2010, 16 years ago. While the first was quite straightforward – mango puree, seasonal fruit, thick yogurt, the Lebkuchen Verrines were a bit more involved with layers of vanilla genoise crumbs, lebkuchen cream, and more crumbs. That inspiration came from some leftover Lebkuchen genoise sponge with thoughts of “what would go with warm, spicy Christmas flavours that the lebkuchen spice threw up so enticingly?” Apple compote sounded like an idea, maybe with craisins, perhaps a touch of orange zest. Soon Lebkuchen Cream & Genoise Verrines with an apple craisin compote were born.

Believe me when I say, stay with your imagination, create with what you have on hand, trust the process, enjoy it!

I leave you with this delightful recipe for Mixed Berry Walnut Verrines which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Give it your own twist if that makes you happy. Pick a combination of any seasonal fruit you might have on hand or reach for frozen berries. Do remember to play with colours, flavours and textures bringing everything together with some sort of custard or cream, jelly too perhaps. Enjoy!!

Mixed Berry Walnut Verrines

Light, refreshing, summery and so satisfying, these verrines might be something you'll want to make on repeat. With the biscuit walnut layer with loads of walnuts that adds interesting dimension to the dessert, make sure you pick your best glasses since seeing the layers is half the magic to a good Verrine.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 5 minutes mins

Chill 1 hour hr

Total Time 1 hour hr 20 minutes mins

Course Dessert

Cuisine French

Servings 4 servings

Equipment

• 1 saucepan
• 1 Bowl
• 1 Hand blender
• 1 Large glass bowl
• 1 Electric hand mixer
• 1 Piping bag
• 4 dessert glasses

Ingredients

  

Mixed berry desert sauce

• 80 g fresh raspberries or frozen
• 80 g fresh blueberries or frozen
• 120 g fresh strawberries or frozen
• Juice of 1 lime
• 50 g desi khaand / castor sugar / raw sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour / cornstarch

Biscuit walnut layer

• 90 g digestive biscuits
• 75 g walnuts
• 15 g desi khaand / castor sugar / raw sugar
• 20 g clarified butter / ghee melted, room temperature

Vanilla whipped cream

• 250 g whipping cream chilled
• 60 g desi khand / raw sugar/ light brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

 

Mixed berry desert sauce

• Place all the berries with the sugar and lime juice in a saucepan. Simmer gently for 2-3 minutes until the berries begin to release their juices.
• Gently spoon out 2-3 tbsp of clear juices into a bowl and cool, then stir in the cornflour. Allow the berries to simmer until soft 2-3 minutes, then stir in the cornflour mix. Simmer until the sauce thickens, another minute or so, then turn off the heat. Cool the sauce completely.

Biscuit walnut layer

• Place all the ingredients for the biscuit layer in the jar of the hand blender and process until you get fine crumbs. Reserve.

Vanilla whipped cream

• Add the cold cream, sugar and vanilla extract to a large bowl and beat until mousse like and firm peaks. See notes if you don't have a whipping cream with at least 35% fat.
• Transfer the cream to a piping bag. Alternatively, you can simply spoon it in though that might not give you clean layers.

Layers

• 1. Add a biscuit layer and level out.

  2. Pipe over a layer of whipped vanilla cream

  3. Gently spoon in mixed berry dessert sauce and repeat, finishing with a layer of whipped vanilla cream.

  4. Top with a dollop of dessert sauce, fresh berries, walnuts halves, a sprig on mint, edible flowers etc.

Notes

If you don’t have whipping cream, you could stabilize a lower fat chilled cream with either a cold water soluble gelatin, 1.25 tsp ground with the sugar, else with 25g of melted, cooled white couverture chocolate. If you use white chocolate, you might consider reducing the sugar to taste.

Keyword berries, biscuit, blueberries, cream, dessert, eggfree, eggless, fruit, glass dessert, homemade, no bake, nobake, pudding, raspberries, simple, small desserts, strawberries, summer dessert, sweet, vegetarian, vegetarian dessert, walnuts

What does the word VERRINE mean?

Metonymously, a “verrine“, a French word, designates in the cooking world a dish served in a verrine, in a vertical manner, allowing a different aesthetic and gustatory experience compared to a dish served on a plate. This French word is usually left untranslated because there is no single English word for it.

What is a Verrine you might ask?

A verrine is a glass container, often small, in which is served a starter, main course or dessert, rather than a drink. The glass might be able to be used for drinks, but when used for food, it is referred to as a verrine, and indeed the dish itself can be named ″a verrine″. The verrine originated from France, and is a dessert or appetizer made by layering different ingredients in a single serving glass. It can be either sweet or savoury, and makes an attractive presentation. I’ve never tried making a savoury one, but have heard of layered salads, appetizers etc which are becoming a culinary trend. They are a display of art, and often offer a fascinating blend of colours, textures and complimentary flavours! Another plus is that this one can be made in advance, and the flavours mature beautifully. It is entirely customizable to taste. It’s fun to play around with the layers and ingredients.

Can Verrines be sweet or savoury?

A verrine is a confection, originally from France, made by layering ingredients in a small glass. It can be either sweet or savoury, making a dessert or snack. Verrines are a great ‘degustation’ of mixed flavours. The kids love them and its a great way also of using up the leftovers.  And if you wanted to go full-French, you could have an apéritif dînatoire during which you would serve des verrines délicieuses. Verrines are a beautiful way to serve food, and as the name indicates, the food is served in a glass, which allow for playing with layering and transparencies. If using oven- proof glasses, verrines can be served cooked, but they are often served cold.
The basic idea of a verrine is visible vertical layers through glass, and the possibilities are infinite. For e.g. for a sweet version , think a base, a cream layer, a dessert sauce {fruit, caramel, chocolate, coffee, saffron, vanilla etc.}, perhaps a praline or macerated seasonal berries or stone fruit. Use your imagination to recreate favourite food memories! Savoury is even more fun – think salads, starters, even Indian street food like chaat, then combinations are endless.

What combination of flavours can you use in Verrines?

Verrines are entirely customisable and that’s the fun part. Use what you have in the fridge and give it your own signature touch. You can go sweet or savoury. For example, these Tropical Fruit Verrines I made over a decade ago hold the best of Indian summer fruit – mangoes, cherries, kiwi, peaches and here I used a hung yogurt as the creamy layer. These were gluten free and doubled up for a hearty, delicious breakfast too. I have in mind a black forest version and that should show up really soon. There are plenty of savoury options too – think roasted tomatoes with burrata, think chickpeas layers with a tzatziki, think a white bean hummus layered with a tahini sauce, peaches, mangoes and pomegranates and toasted seeds and nuts.

Can Verrines be made ahead?

Absolutely, verrines are often served cold. That’s probably the best part of creating this layered magic because the flavours seem to mature as the glasses sit in the fridge and in my humble opinion, anything that is made ahead takes a load off your mind. How fun is it to open the fridge and just serve or dig in. It almost feels like no work was done to create something so beautiful.