Berry Cream Cheese Parfaits

I love dessert. There, I said it. Even if I am completely full after a good meal I will always find room for something sweet at the end.
I've always wanted to make parfaits but had never actually chosen a recipe for parfaits when planning a meal. Some friends  were coming over and I wanted to make a dessert but I didn't want to make a cake, or cheesecake, or something heavy and very time consuming. I wanted it to be fun and light(ish). So, I finally chose a recipe for parfaits that had been sitting in my recipe folder for months. I adapted it from a recipe I found on allrecipes.ca and I'll give you the original recipe as I halved the recipe to make two big parfaits instead of 8 small ones:

1 8 oz. package of cream cheese (softened)
1 1/2 cups cold milk
1 3.4 oz package instant vanilla pudding mix
1 1/2 cups thawed Cool Whip
24 Nilla wafers, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cups mixed fresh berries (I used frozen berries as I didn't have any fresh on hand and I actually preferred that as when the berries thawed they left some juice which I used in the parfaits to pour over the nilla wafers)

First, beat cream cheese with a mixer until creamy. Then slowly beat in the milk. Add the dry pudding mix and beat with mixer until it turns into budding basically. Then fold in 1 cup of the Cool Whip.

Keep in mind that this picture is only half of the recipe (1/2 package of cream cheese, 3/4 cups milk, half package of vanilla pudding mix, 1/2 cup Cool Whip) so if you make the original recipe that serves 8 you will have twice as what is in the picture.
I chopped up some Nilla Wafers...

 And then started layering the parfaits in two large glasses...

I started with a little bit of the vanilla pudding/cream cheese mixture on the bottom of the glass. Then I added the wafers and then the berries. After the berries I added a little bit of Cool Whip and then started the layers over again (pudding mixture, wafers, berries, Cool Whip in that order). I let them sit in the fridge for a while so the wafers would get slightly soft (but not mushy!). When I made them for our friends I used the same proportions and made 4 smaller parfaits in martini glasses. Forgot to take a picture of those however.
There you have it! Also, happy July long weekend/Canada day everybody!

- A