Blueberry Fool

Yesterday was a hectic day, on top of being a zombie day.  This makes for a great combination that my sister loves.  Some of our featured activities were throwing an (already falling apart) dresser out of the second story of the barn, and deflating a yoga ball in socially awkward ways (me sitting on it and encouraging my sister to lay over me so we make a plus sign...she wouldn't do it though).  It was also the day we did the family party for Nathan and my mom, who share a birthday.  We always have 2 desserts at our family party.  Nathan had army cake, which was just cake with army men and army jeeps on top, engaged in an epic battle scene, designed by my cake boss husband.  He used brown sugar for the dirt, just like on Cake Boss.  This is what my mom's dessert was, at my suggestion.  We have a bumper crop of blueberries right now (at least for our family) so had plenty on hand to make this, and she loves blueberry stuff.  I made a blueberry fool several years ago, but it didn't turn out as good as this one.  It was back when I was new to cooking.  I didn't save the recipe, or the cookbook it came from.  So I googled it and found this recipe from Food Network.  It's supposed to have lemon juice and lemon peel, but I know that's just if you want to cut the sweetness of the blueberries, which I did not.  So I left those out, but I will still list them in the recipe in case anybody else wants to follow it to the letter.

Blueberry Fool
2 cups blueberries
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
Pinch of salt
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 1/2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Shortbread or wafer cookies, for serving

Make the blueberry sauce: Heat 1 1/2 cups blueberries, 1/4 cup sugar and the salt in a saucepan over medium heat until bubbling. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook, stirring occasionally, until the blueberries are soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the lemon zest and juice; remove from the heat. Stir in the remaining 1/2 cup blueberries and let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Beat the heavy cream in a bowl with a mixer or whisk until soft peaks just begin to form. Beat in the vanilla and the remaining 1 tablespoon sugar. Gently fold all but 1/3 cup of the blueberry sauce into the whipped cream. Divide among glasses and top with the remaining blueberry sauce. Serve with cookies.

So I like my cream more whipped than soft peaks, so I beat it just like I do when I want whipped cream for pie or whatever, then mixed the cooled blueberries in.  My sister did the blueberry part, because she didn't trust me around hot appliances at that point in the day.  The dessert came out so great, like blueberry mousse (at least the texture of mousse).  We did have (store-bought) shortbread cookies with this, but I don't think it added anything...it was just so yummy by itself.  We stored the leftovers in the freezer because I remember my mother in law saying that you can't just refrigerate leftover whipped cream because it will separate.  I am going to eat it soon.