These Amazing Fourth of July Desserts Are the Ultimate Crowd-Pleasers
Cobblers, crisps, ice cream, and more! Recipes for creamy, fruity, refreshing ways to sweeten your Fourth of July BBQ.
Photo: James Carrier
There’s nothing like a Fourth of July dessert. Any July day, of course, is a great time for ice cream, the greatest and most versatile of all sweets. But you also get to incorporate summer bounty, like stone fruit. The red, white, and blue colors of the holiday are a fun challenge to try to incorporate—luckily blueberries are plentiful at this time of year, too.
For your Independence Day gathering, you can go full-on 4th with a patriotic pie—either blueberry or multi-fruit—that mimics the flag. But if that’s a little too on-the-nose, we’ve got a baker’s dozen and then some of great ideas for fresh, summery treats that are easy to scale up for a crowd.
Some are rich and flavorful, like a marionberry pie à la mode. Some are light and refreshing, like watermelon granita, and some are so light as to be barely there, like this crisp-crunchy Pavlova topped with caramel and peach. We’ve got custard pies, fruit crisp, and ice cream several different ways (including a minty sundae), and frozen-yogurt graham-cracker sandwiches that taste more decadent then they are.
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For something a little more out-of-the-box, we have two recipes that cook right on the grill. (You’ll have a grill going, right? It’s practically required on the Fourth of July.) One is an otherwise conventional apple crisp, the other a slightly offbeat but delicious sweet kebab made with strawberries and chunks of cake. And if you think strawberry shortcake sounds good, wait until you discover strawberry tallcake—which has all the creamy deliciousness you expect, just several layers higher.
Favorite Party Desserts
Old Glory Cherry-Blueberry Pie
Top a juicy cherry and blueberry pie with a pastry crust cut into stars and stripes for a festive 4th of July dessert.
Apple Galette
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.
Burnt Basque Cheesecake
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.
Apricot Patty-Cake Cobbler
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.
Raspberry Pluot Crisp with Coconut Streusel
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).
Blackberry Cobbler
Thicken the blackberry mixture with cornstarch and tapioca and top with a buttery-rich biscuit mixture for this top-rated cobbler recipe.
Strawberry Tallcake
We created this elegant, elongated version of strawberry shortcake by stacking cake layers with berries and whipped cream.
Grilled Strawberry Shortcake Kebabs
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.
Grill-Baked Apple Crisp
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.
Almond Pavlova with Peaches, Cream, and Salted Peach Caramel
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.
Apricot and Pluot Mosaic Cake
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.
Long Beach Lime Pies
We use Mexican limes (the West Coast name for Key limes) to create these creamy pies.
Anjou Bakery’s Marionberry Pie
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.
Spiced Crostata with Pluots
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.
Nectarine Creamsicles with Rose Water
The rose water is subtle here, just enough to bring out the fruit’s floral quality. You’ll need popsicle molds and sticks.
Fresh Mint Chip Ice Cream
“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.
Blackberry Chocolate Chunk Ice Cream
Use this shortcut method to make just about any ice cream flavor you want.
Blueberry Cheesecake Frozen Yogurt Sandwiches
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.
Granita
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.
Fourth of July Slab Pie
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.
