These Amazing Fourth of July Desserts Are the Ultimate Crowd-Pleasers

Top a juicy cherry and blueberry pie with a pastry crust cut into stars and stripes for a festive 4th of July dessert.

A Chez Panisse staple, Alice Waters’ galette is sure to impress year-round and can be made with any sturdy fruit you can find at the market, like pears, peaches, plums, or apricots.

Kai Loebach has adapted this crowd-pleaser to make it gluten-free by using tapioca flour. “I didn’t say it’s fat-free,” he says. Because that would be no fun.

As the apricots cook, their tartness comes forward. If the fruit is firm and underripe, it will require the maximum amount of sugar. Serve the cobbler warm, with sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. You can make it up to 1 day ahead; cover airtight when cool and let stand at room temperature. Reheat in a 350° oven for about 10 minutes.

We couldn’t resist loading up on multiple kinds of seeds—plus nuts and coconut—to create this crunchy, addictive streusel. For the filling, Flavor King pluots, which ripen in late summer, are one of our favorites, rich, floral, and musky. To keep the juicy filling from spilling into the oven as it bubbles and thickens, set a baking sheet on the rack below (not directly underneath the crisp, or it won’t bake evenly).

Thicken the blackberry mixture with cornstarch and tapioca and top with a buttery-rich biscuit mixture for this top-rated cobbler recipe.

We created this elegant, elongated version of strawberry shortcake by stacking cake layers with berries and whipped cream.

You’ll need 32 bamboo skewers (each 8 in.); there’s no need to soak them before they go on the grill, because they won’t char with such a short cooking time.

When it is warm outdoors, the last thing you want to do is heat up the house with the oven. Try baking on the grill using indirect heat. Assemble the simple crisp featuring two types of apples, Golden Delicious and Granny Smith, top with the buttery crust and bake.

Every cook needs a ta-da moment. Come to the table with this–crackly meringues layered with satiny homemade caramel and the season’s best peaches–and you’ve got yours. You can make most of it one day ahead.

Baking this buttery cake in a big, shallow tart pan ensures that the cake doesn’t get soggy, even as the fruit slices remain juicy. For the best texture, make and serve it on the same day.

We use Mexican limes (the West Coast name for Key limes) to create these creamy pies.

At a little bakery in the eastern Cascades, you’ll find this amazing pie, which has a shortbread-like crust and a Northwest berry filling.

A cross between plums and apricots, pluots have an explosive flavor that only gets better when you accent it with spices. The crisp crust tastes like it took all day to make but requires no special pastry skills.

The rose water is subtle here, just enough to bring out the fruit’s floral quality. You’ll need popsicle molds and sticks.

“We make a lot of classic flavors, but we’re always thinking about how to make them better,” says Anne Walker of San Francisco’s Bi-Rite Creamery. This mint ice cream, for instance, isn’t fluorescent green because it’s made with mint leaves, not food coloring. And instead of waxy chocolate chips, it has ultra thin shards of chocolate, which instantly melt in the mouth.

Use this shortcut method to make just about any ice cream flavor you want.

Cream cheese and vanilla beans give these treats an extraordinary depth of flavor. Just as amazing: the time saved by making the sandwiches in a big pan rather than assembling them individually.

Featuring fresh, summertime watermelon, the only other ingredients you need to complete this simple and stunning dessert are sugar, lime rind, watermelon, and lime juice.

The large size and easy portability of slab pies make them ideal for barbecues and big gatherings. This one features three types of berries and a stars-and-stripes crust to make it especially patriotic. You’ll need a small star-shaped cookie cutter and a ruler to make the stars and stripes.