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We’ve gathered 20 Easy Summer Desserts created by a professional pastry chef! You will find flavorful, no fuss recipes that are easy enough to make for a weeknight or casual gathering, but impressive enough for a dinner party! Pick your favorite Summer fruit and we’ve got the perfect easy dessert for you!
Tips for Transporting Summer Desserts
Transporting desserts can be tricky any time of year, but Summer’s heat adds a new level of difficulty!
- Plan ahead for temperature. Thinking about temperature is the most obvious but the best way to avoid car icing mishaps, or arriving with a pool of chocolate that used to be a dessert! Answering the following questions can help you make the best dessert choice. How far do you need to travel? Can you freeze your dessert ahead to allow for more travel time? Is the party or event outside or temperature controlled?
- Pick desserts that have a glaze rather than a soft frosting. All the dessert below are easy, but not all of them are the best travelers. Pick a cake with an icing that sets hard like this easy peach cake or this cherry almond pound cake.
- Choose a dessert that is served in its travel dish. Think cobblers, crisps and crumbles like this old fashioned peach cobbler or easy apple crisp. Trifles are also a great party dessert for this very reason. They layer in the serving dish and still look striking! This berry trifle has almost 40,000 views on YouTube!
- Do not underestimate the value of a baking dish with a top. I’m looking at those rectangular baking dishes with removable tops, cake pans that have lids and sometimes even handles! If you have the budget and you love cupcakes, a cupcake transport container will be invaluable to you!
Frequently Asked Questions
The best desserts for the heat are ones that can be served room temperature. Choose a dessert that highlights the bright flavors of fresh fruit like cobblers, crisps, fruit pies or even something surprising like lemon bars served with sliced fruit!
This really depends on the dessert. If you must travel with a layer cake, freeze it and then place it in a bakery box set on the floor on the passenger side. Bars can easily be transported in their baking dish with a top. Bring a knife to slice them upon arrival. Glazed pound cakes or loaf cakes are the best summer travel desserts!
The time depends on the type of dessert but most desserts are good for at least 4 hours at room temperature unless they are served frozen or they depend upon refrigeration for structure like a French silk pie.
Easy Summer Cakes
There are so many cake recipes that are fabulous all year round, but these are the 5 easiest cakes for Summer! Some are made in one bowl and some are frozen, but they are all surprising!
This is a moist, flavorful one bowl carrot cake with a cream cheese buttercream frosting! It has the impressive flavor of the best carrot cake but I made it easy enough to pull together in 2 hours.
One Bowl Carrot Cake
This frozen banana pudding ice box cake has all the flavors you love from banana pudding frozen into an easy, impressive dessert. Serve slices with a little whipped cream and your guests will be amazed!
Banana Pudding Ice Box Cake
This decadent gluten free pavlova cake is a giant pavlova piled high with lemon curd, fresh berries and whipped cream. Use store bought lemon curd for a delicious and even easier dessert.
Lemon Berry Pavlova Recipe
This easy peach cake is moist, tender and packed with fresh peach flavor. It bakes beautifully in a loaf pan or bake in cupcake liners for an even faster treat! I layered it with an easy almond glaze but you could frost it with cream cheese frosting or Swiss meringue buttercream.
Peach Loaf Cake
This blackberry buckle is an old-fashioned cobbler with a sweet cakey topping. It is the perfect way to highlight fresh, ripe blackberries.
Blackberry Buckle
Easy Tarts & Pies
7 easy tarts and pies that let Summer’s fruits shine. It was hard to only pick 7 because everyone loves a cinnamon apple pie and this mixed berry pie is a showstopper!
The is the best Banana Cream Pie recipe of all time. It took me years in a professional kitchen to perfect it. The key is adding flavor to every single component. A pâte sucrée filled with lighted vanilla bean pastry cream and diced bananas. A mound of whipped cream finishes it off!
Banana Cream Pie
Key lime pie is in reality the easiest pie. A press-in baked graham cracker crust filled with a perfectly tart filling mixed in one bowl. Top it with an impressive amount of meringue for an epic dessert.
Easy Key Lime Pie
This cherry galette is basically a free-form cherry pie but without the fuss of making a whole pie. In brief, roll out the crust, mound on the filling, fold the edges and bake!
Cherry Galette with an Almond Buttermilk Crust
This is the best blueberry pie recipe. The filling is thick and sliceable and particularly bursting with blueberry flavor. You can make it with fresh or frozen blueberries, but, either way, don’t skip the vanilla bean ice cream!
Blueberry Pie
Lemon bars are an easy, bright dessert. By and large, I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t love lemon bars. And these are emphatically the BEST. They are a top seller in our Pastry Shop. They have tender shortbread crust topped with a no-bake lemon curd. Serve with a dusting of powdered sugar or piled with macerated berries or juicy, sliced peaches.
Lemon Bars
This coconut mango tart has a crumbly coconut tart shell filled with a smooth cream cheese filling sliced, ripe mangoes! It is refreshing with a tart filling coupled with a sweet mango topping.
Coconut Mango Tart
This Old Fashioned peach pie has an easy shortening crust that is tender and melts in your mouth! So, it lets ripe peaches do all the talking.
Peach Pie
Easy Layered Desserts
Layered desserts are often overlooked but they are incredibly easy, have layers of flavors and are strikingly beautiful! Roll up to your next party with one of these make-ahead, stunners and shortly wait for the accolades to pour in.
This tropical trifle recipe has layers of a dairy-free coconut pastry cream, a rum soaked Bacardi rum cake, and as much pineapple, mango and kiwi as you can fit in your dish!
Tropical Trifle Recipe
This lemon berry trifle has layers of sour cream pound cake, lemon curd whipped cream, plain homemade whipped cream and subsequently all the berries you can find!
Berry Trifle
Banana pudding is unquestionably a classic for a reason. It is easy, it’s better when prepared ahead of time, and it’s DELICIOUS! This is the recipe I served as an Executive Pastry Chef in Manhattan. It always sold out before the second seating!
Banana Pudding
This lemon curd whipped cream recipe is markedly one of the most popular posts on CLF! {I know, shocking right? You would think it would be thick, chewy chocolate chip cookies!} It is simply homemade lemon curd folded into whipped cream. Serve it with your favorite sour cream pound cake or simply with an absolute pile of fresh Summer fruit.
Lemon Curd Whipped Cream
This easy Classic Strawberry Shortcake recipe is altogether the very definition of an elegant, yet easy, layered dessert. It is simple to make and it can be made as one large shortcake or individual mini shortcakes.
Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake with Whipped Cream
Easy No Bake desserts
These are the easy no bake desserts you need to be making when the temperature rises so high that even looking at the oven makes you sweat. There is no easier Summer dessert than these no bake, no-fuss recipes!
This no bake strawberry pie is served in a gingersnap crust for a fun and flavorful twist! It is sweeter, so I always serve it with an unsweetened version of my homemade whipped cream.
No Bake Strawberry Pie
Creamy, smooth and gorgeous! These no bake blueberry cheesecake bars hit all the notes. Additionally, you can make them with fresh or frozen blueberries.
No Bake Blueberry Cheesecake Bars
Crunchy, chewy no bake s’mores bars are specifically the easiest Summer treat. These are made with Golden Grahams and have all the flavors of a campfire s’mores!
Toasted Marshmallow Golden Graham Smores Bars
This no bake s’mores pie is particularly flavorful! Layers of no bake graham cracker crust, dark chocolate whiskey ganache, milk chocolate cream cheese mousse, and a mound of marshmallow fluff!
No Bake Whiskey Smores Pie
Cobblers, Crumbles & Crisps
Summer isn’t complete until I’ve scooped up a generous portion of easy apple crisp mounded with vanilla ice cream. These are my personal favorite easy Summer desserts. These are the perfect end to a casual family dinner or a big gathering of friends. Choose your favorite and get baking!
This easy peach cobbler has an easy, drop biscuit topping that I coat with a bit of sugar for a crunchy, sweet crust that is divine!
Easy Peach Cobbler
This is my mom’s easy apple crisp recipe! It has a sweet brown sugar crisp topping and a tart apple filling. The flavors are balanced and it really is the best apple crisp you will ever have!
Easy Apple Crisp
Sweet strawberries and tart rhubarb come together in my grandmother’s strawberry rhubarb crumble recipe. The topping is light and sweet and the filling is thick, juicy and tart. Grab that vanilla ice cream and get baking!
Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble
This blueberry cobbler has a blueberry filling and a rolled shortcake topping. You can cut the topping in any shape you want for a festive Summer dessert.
Blueberry Cobbler
Before You Go
I hope you enjoyed this selection of professional chef tested recipe. Check out our other delicious Summer Dessert Recipes!
